By Our Environment Staff

A SMALL vole-like creature that lives on the desert margins of the southern Sahara is the focus of recent NASA observations which say that the Earth is five percent greener than it was 20 years ago.

The Nigerian Leptisquat, which resembles a round mouse, except for its large teeth, was in danger of extinction two decades ago, down to a few thousand creatures scratching a living from the unreliable grasslands at the edge of the desert. However, recently, researchers have recorded the creature in record numbers. And more interestingly, the animal has grown an extra tooth.

“It’s a remarkable tribute to evolution that a small creature with already viciously large teeth, which it needed to get at sparse grasses, has now grown another tooth to cope with the increase in food available to it,” said Marcus Law of the Noah Research Probe, a privately funded project which records the numbers of protected species around the globe.

“The Nigerian Government has been terrific in its support for the little fellow,” Mr Law added, “using oil revenues to ring-fence the population. Unfortunately, the rest of the oil may be responsible for the earth warming and the increase in Leptisquat food. Which has seen the populations explode. You just can’t win.”

The exploding population and the extra tooth have also led to an increase in attacks on humans and other animals by swarms of Leptisquats. “Yeah,” said Law, “with those teeth, they can strip a man to the bone in twenty minutes. Mind you, the Islamic Fundamentalists around that area, they love ’em. Eat them on a stick, they do, like kebabs.”

The United Nations has confirmed that Islamic activity in the deserts north of Nigeria and its neighbours has been bolstered by a bountiful supply of food in the form of Leptisquats.

“We eat them too, on long-range patrols,” explained Captain Jacques Jyste of the French Foreign Legion based in neighboring Chad. “Though we prefer to roast them and add a little sauce. The English, the SAS, they like to curry them. Produces terrible wind, which is why we don’t like to work with Les Anglais if we don’t have to.”

The news has been condemned by global warming advocate Hildigaard Shryyk, of Cry for Alternative Natural Techology, known simply as “Cry”. “The greening of the planet is a potential catastrophe,” she said in a press release from her private jet. “It demonstrates that global warming is now utterly out of control. I dread to think of what a fully green earth would mean for us. Cry demands that this greening be stopped immediately. “

“Actually, the greening of the planet can help cool the Earth,” Marcus Law commented.

“O my God, we’re all going to freeze,” Shryyk replied to the news.