Ancient Rat As Big As A Bull

摘要

A 4-million-year-old rat skull found at a coastal site in Uruguay set a new world record in the giant rodent category. The 21-inch-long skull is likely to have belonged to a creature as large as a bull and as heavy as a small car, according to researchers' estimates. The previous record holder was a 1,500-pound, 8-million-year-old guinea pig discovered in Venezuela a few years ago. Ernesto Blanco, a paleontologist at the University of the Republic in Montevideo, Uruguay, says that the new champion rat, Josephoartigasia monesi, lived in forests near river deltas or estuaries and roamed around South America among saber-toothed marsupial tigers and huge, flightless, carnivorous birds.