"New mammal species are mainly discovered in hot spots of biodiversity like Southeast Asia, and it was generally believed that every species of mammal in Europe had been identified. This is why the discovery of a new species of mouse on Cyprus was so unexpected and exciting," Thomas Cucchi, a research fellow at Durham University, said Thursday.

Cucchi, a French archaeologist and expert on the origin and human dispersal of house mice, found the new species of mouse -- named Mus cypriacus, or Cypriot mouse -- while working in Cyprus in 2004. He compared its teeth with ones of fossils of mice collected by paleontologists and found that the mouse had colonized and adapted to the Cypriot environment several thousand years before the arrival of man.

It now lives side by side with common European house mice, whose ancestors arrived with man during Neolithic colonization, the university said.

"This is very unusual because all other endemic mammals of Mediterranean islands died out following the arrival of man, with the exception of two species of shrew. The new mouse of Cyprus is the only endemic rodent still alive, and as such can be considered as a living fossil," Cucchi said in a telephone interview.

Shrews are small mammals that resemble mice but have a long pointed snout and small eyes and ears, and eat insects.

Cucchi's findings appeared this spring in the peer-reviewed journal Zootaxa, an international journal for animal taxonomists.

The new species differs from other European mice in that it has a bigger head, ears, eyes and teeth, Cucchi said.

"The discovery of this new species and the riddle behind its survival offers a new area of study for scientists studying the evolutionary process of mammals and the ecological consequences of human activities on island biodiversity," Cucchi said.

The biodiversity of Europe has been combed through so extensively since Victorian times that new mammal species are rarely found there, and few scientists had expected new creatures as large as mice to be discovered on the continent.

Cucchi said a bat discovered in Hungary and Greece in 2001 was the last new living mammal found in Europe. But he said no new terrestrial mammal has been found in Europe for decades.(AP)