It's called the "hog-nosed rat" (Hyorhinomys stuempkei), and Australia's Museum Victoria says it has features "never been seen by science before".
At the same time cute and homely, the rat features a large, flat, pink nose similar to that of a pig's. It also has extremely large ears, a small mouth and long white front teeth.
"To Australians, Hyorhinomys, is a bit like a rat version of a bandicoot, with long hind limbs, huge ears, and a long, pointed face perfect for slurping up invertebrate prey," said Dr Kevin Rowe of Museum Victoria."The hog-nosed rat is exciting for us because it extends the diversity of an already amazing group of rodents that are only found on the island of Sulawesi. Even though there are only eight species in this endemic group, they exhibit a huge eco-morphological range including small grey rats, a nearly toothless vermivore, an amphibious rat, and now a long-limbed, hog-nosed rat."
The team's research into the new rat species will be published in the October edition of the "Journal of Mammalogy".