‘Extinct’ red-crested tree rat rediscovered

This 2015 video is about Santamartamys rufodorsalis.

From Wildlife Extra:

Spectacular rat rediscovered after 113 Years – First photos

Red-crested tree rat photographed for the first time

May 2011. 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 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.

El Dorado Nature Reserve

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 Colombia. 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.

African crested rat uses poison trick to foil predators: here.

The impact of the Congo River and its tributaries on the rodent genus Praomys: speciation origin or range expansion limit? Here.