Giant Fossil Rodent Found in Uruguay Weighed More Than a Car

A fossilized skull found at a beach in Uruguay belongs to a newly identified species of rodent that weighed more than a ton and roamed the estuaries of South America alongside saber-toothed tigers.

“Some of the living giants in Africa, the hippopotamus and the elephants, get this big, but there aren't many land creatures that are larger,” said Ernesto Blanco, who teaches biomechanics at the Universidad de la Republica in Montevideo, Uruguay.

The fossil, discovered in a boulder by an amateur paleontologist, could help expand knowledge about rodents from the Dinomyidae family, which were previously identified largely from fragments of jawbones and isolated teeth, said Blanco, co-author of a report on the find in the UK journal Proceedings of The Royal Society.

Only one species of Dinomyidae still exists, the endangered pacarana of South America. About 50 fossil species are known. The skull dates to the Pliocene-Pleistocene period, ranging from 2 million to 4 million years ago.

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(Source: Bloomberg)