Description
The animals look generally like rats, with thick, furred tails similar to a squirrel's, but limp. The head is large, with round ears and a somewhat bulbous bridge of the nose, and very long whiskers. Their fur is dark slate grey, with a blackish tail. The belly is lighter, with a small, whitish area in the center. Their eyes are beady and black. They are about 26 cm (10 in) long with a 14 cm (5.5 in) tail and weigh about 400 g (14 oz). Jenkins et al. (2004) described the jaw as hystricognathous, but Dawson et al. (2006) argued it is sciurognathous. The infraorbital foramen is enlarged, consistent with a hystricomorphous zygomasseteric system. The pterygoid fossae do not connect to the orbit, setting them apart from the hystricognathous rodents.
Read more about this topic: Laotian Rock Rat
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“God damnit, why must all those journalists be such sticklers for detail? Why, they’d hold you to an accurate description of the first time you ever made love, expecting you to remember the color of the room and the shape of the windows.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“The type of fig leaf which each culture employs to cover its social taboos offers a twofold description of its morality. It reveals that certain unacknowledged behavior exists and it suggests the form that such behavior takes.”
—Freda Adler (b. 1934)
“The great object in life is Sensation—to feel that we exist, even though in pain; it is this “craving void” which drives us to gaming, to battle, to travel, to intemperate but keenly felt pursuits of every description whose principal attraction is the agitation inseparable from their accomplishment.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)