New Species of Mouse Discovered in Peru Mountains
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A new grass mouse was discovered in the high altitude mountain forests of Peru.
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Constantino Aucca, president of the Peruvian wildlife conservation organization Association of Andean Ecosystems said of the discovery,”This is the best thing that has happened in this region in the past 10 to 20 years”.
The mouse lives at elevations of 9,400 to 15,500 feet in forested areas of the Peruvian Andes. It lives on seeds and insects. The genus of the species is Akodon, which is the genus for South American field mice. There are about forty species in the genus. It is very rare in this day for a new mammal to be discovered anywhere on the planet.
The new field mouse only lives in the very high mountain forests. Reseach expeditions found it in the Cordillera Blanca region, which also has 33 mountain peaks over 18,000 feet high. (One of the peaks is Alpamayo, which UNESCO declared as the most beautiful mountain in the world.) ECOAN is a non-profit wildlife protection and research organization with restoration of damaged wild lands as a main focus.
Image Credit: ECOAN
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