PARIS (AFP) - Fossil hunters have uncovered the greatest rodent that ever lived -- a one-tonne behemoth that bestrode the swamplands of South America some four million years ago.
The newly-identified species is the greatest-known member of the order Rodentia and by comparison makes the biggest rodent alive today, the 60-kilo (132-pound) capybara, look like a pygmy shrew.
The skull of the extraordinary beast was found in a broken boulder on Kiyu Beach on the coast of Uruguay's River Plate region, palaeontologists reported in a study on Wednesday.
Measuring a whopping 53 centimetres (21 inches), the skull has massive incisors several centimetres long.
Andres Rinderknecht of the National Museum of Natural History and Anthropology said this find "explained other things we've been finding in the area:
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Rodents of Unusal Size
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