NEW ORLEANS - A Louisiana State University scientist and international colleagues have discovered a new kind of shrew-rat: a big-eared, long-snouted rodent with extra-long lower incisors jutting out below a flat, piggy nose.

The hog-nosed shrew rat is the cover critter for this month's "Journal of Mammology," where Jacob A. Esselstyne (ESS-uhl-stin) and scientists from Australia and Indonesia describe their find. 

It is so different from seven other species on the Indonesian island of Sulaweisi (soo-luh-WAY-see) that it's considered a new genus: that is, it's believed to have different ancestors from other shrew-rats. 

The scientists dubbed it Hyorhinomys stuempkei. The genus name means "hog-nosed." The species is named after the pseudonym used by a German biologist to describe a fictional island inhabited by animals with extraordinary nose and ear adaptations.