If this isn’t a surprisingly exciting news post, I don’t know what is. Actually, yes I do.
Probably the day we get definite proof of Bigfoot, then we can post a real surprisingly exciting news post. For now, this will do.

Researchers from one of Colombia’s nature reserve stumbled upon a small guinea-pig-sized rodent that has not been seen since 1898; 113 years ago. There have been a few organized expeditions through Colombia in search of the Red-crested Tree Rat (Santamartamys rufodorsalis) but no evidence of its existence has been collected since 1898. Many believed the small mammal to have gone extinct for all these decades. Strange…reminds me of another mammal that has gone extinct for a long time, but people still claim to encounter it throughout the world’s wilderness. There’s still hope people!

Full source: PhysOrg.com

(PhysOrg.com) — A unique and mysterious guinea-pig-sized rodent, not seen since 1898 despite several organized searches, bizarrely showed up at the front door of an ecolodge at a nature reserve in Colombia, South America. The magnificent red-crested tree rat (Santamartamys rufodorsalis), stayed for almost two hours while two research volunteers took the first photos ever of a creature the world thought would never be seen again.

The charming nocturnal rodent made his re-debut to the world at 9:30PM on May 4, 2011 at the El Dorado Nature Reserve in the far north of the country. The Reserve was established in 2005 by Fundación ProAves — Colombia’s foremost bird conservation organization — with support from American Bird Conservancy, World Land Trust-US, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act, Fundación Loro Parque and Conservation International.

The animal was rediscovered by Lizzie Noble and Simon McKeown — two volunteer researchers with ProAves monitoring endangered amphibians. It posed for photographs — including close-ups — before calmly proceeding back to the forest.

“He just shuffled up the handrail near where we were sitting and seemed totally unperturbed by all the excitement he was causing. We are absolutely delighted to have rediscovered such a wonderful creature after just a month of volunteering with ProAves. Clearly the El Dorado Reserve has many more exciting discoveries waiting,” said Lizzie Noble from Godalming, England.