Nat­ur­al his­to­ry and sys­tem­at­ics as we know those sci­ences were born in Europe a few hun­dred years ago, and the Euro­pean fau­na is prob­a­bly the best described in the world. Pro­fes­sion­al and ama­teur col­lec­tors have combed every part of the con­ti­nent, search­ing for new species, and for odd forms of exist­ing species.

And yet, despite all that effort, we are still find­ing new species. In the lat­est Zootaxa, researchers describe the first new­ly dis­cov­ered species of Euro­pean rodent in a century.

Mus cypri­a­cus was iden­ti­fied as a dis­tinct species based on mol­e­c­u­lar stud­ies, and mor­pho­log­i­cal mea­sure­ments on the species and on fos­silized mouse remains con­firmed it. The species seems to have col­o­nized Cyprus before humans did, and has sur­vived on the island since then.

Most new­ly dis­cov­ered mam­mal species are found in remote areas, which makes this find even more sur­pris­ing. Unsur­pris­ing­ly, most new mam­mal species are mice and bats, and are small enough to have gone unseen right under peo­ple’s noses.

Update: Appar­ent­ly there was a bat found in Greece and Hun­gary in 2001.