When British woman Melissa Young’s cat brought a tigress from the park, she took a picture of it and uploaded it to social media – something that caught the attention of ecologist Ian Bond.
He contacted her and sent the mouse to him for tests, which confirmed Bond’s suspicions. It was a species of platypus, which in Swedish is called the domestic platypus, which had never before been detected on the mainland of the United Kingdom, and which The Independent reports.
This is the first time in over a hundred years that a non-native mammal has been found in Britain. It will also be the inhabitants of the house who live at the northernmost latitude in the world.
risks outweigh competing native species
The house-billed mouse is found in many countries in central and southern Europe, and it has also been found in Ireland. But now ecologists worry that the new species of shrew will outpace existing populations of pygmy shrews in the UK – just as it did in Ireland in 2007.
It is known to outcompete other shrew species on other islands, so it is important that the species distribution and potential impacts are quickly assessed, says Alan McDevitt of the British Mammal Society.
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