By JAYLINN PFEIFER
For Hays Post

Fort Hays State University’s Sternberg Museum of Natural History added a new species of rat to its collection. The rat is located in their mammalogy collection at the museum.

The rat was already in the collection but under a different name until researchers determined it was a new species.

“I believe the rat was collected in the 1970s under the old name,” said Darrah Steffen, public relations assistant.

The rat was located in Mexico, and research showed it was different than other rats and needed a new name. The biology program worked together and came up with the new name of the species — the La Pera big-eared climbing rat (Ototylomys chiapensis Porter et al. 2017). The study can be found HERE. The authors of the study used a global shared database to locate the new species and research their findings.

Since the collection is still new, not many people have visited.

“We do have a ton of researchers every year come to look at different things in our collection.” said Steffen.

“It is suggested that this species could be critically endangered due to only two known localities and the reduction in the extent and quality of the habitat at or near these locations,” according to the Sternberg website.

For more information about the new species, visit http://sternberg.fhsu.edu/2017/03/08/paratype-housed-at-sternberg/.