Giant rat that once roamed the earth

Times Online ^ | January 15, 2008 | Lewis Smith

[Squidpup]

The fossilised skull of a rat the size of a car has been unearthed. The creature lived about four million years ago, weighed about a tonne and ate mostly soft vegetation. It was so big that it probably spent much of its life semi-submerged in water, like a hippo, to reduce the stresses caused by its size.

Palaeontologists found the skull in rock deposits in Uruguay. It is believed to date back two to four million years to a time when giant wildlife was commonplace in South America.

The rodent, Josephoartigasia monesi, was uncovered by Andrés Rinderknecht and Ernesto Blanco. It has been nicknamed Mighty Mouse and is thought to have been similar to the capybara and pacarana, much smaller creatures that are still found in South America. Capybaras are the biggest living rodents at just over 60kg fully grown, while pacaranas weigh 15kg. The common rat weighs about 300g.

J. monesi is thought to have weighed about a tonne and the biggest specimens could have been more than 2.5 tonnes — about the same as hippopotamuses, which range from 1.4 tonnes to 3.2 tonnes.

The rodent was estimated to be about 3m (10 feet) long and 1.5m tall. Its huge incisors were more than 30cm (12in) long, of which 10cm would have been exposed.

The incisors puzzled the researchers because they were much tougher than necessary for an animal that ate only soft plants. Dr Blanco suggested that they could have been used to fell trees like beavers do, or to fight off predators or courtship rivals.

“It probably ate aquatic plants and fruits, and the environment probably was a forest near fresh water,” Dr Blanco said. “But much work is needed to have a definitive picture. We are working on biomechanical determination of the bite force to better understand this point.”

It shared the Earth with sabre-tooth cats and giant predatory birds that did not fly but could run down prey at terrifying speeds. Its great bulk would have protected it from the killer birds, but its young would have been at risk.

The near-complete skull delighted palaeontologists studying giant South American rodents. Before, they had been limited to bone fragments.

Other teeth in the skull were too small to have allowed the animal to have chewed food well. Researchers concluded that it must have consumed soft vegetation, including fruit.

Rodents make up about 40 per cent of all mammals but the new South American species was still about twice the size of the next biggest, a South American species called Phoberomys.

The skull came from a type of rodent, known as dinomyids, that include today’s pacaranas and which during the Miocene and Pliocene periods, from about 2 to 23 million years ago, underwent an evolutionary explosion creating many species in modern-day Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Venezuela, Bolivia and Colombia.

Dr Rinderknecht, of the National Museum of Natural History and Anthropology in Montevideo, the Uruguayan capital, and Dr Blanco, of the Institute of Physics in Montevideo, reported their findings in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

[Squidpup]

of archeaological and political import

[JennysCool]

Rat the size of a car alert!

[batter]

ROUS Alert!

[digger48]

...skull of a rat the size of a car has been unearthed.........It was so big that it probably spent much of its life semi-submerged in water, like a hippo, to reduce the stresses caused by its size.

[PeterFinn]

Rats the size of a car are nothing new. Ever been to Harlem?

[weegee]

And to think that cavemen once paid to see giant rats fight giant scorpions. < /sarcasm >

[Ancesthntr]

The creature lived about four million years ago, weighed about a tonne and ate mostly soft vegetation. It was so big that it probably spent much of its life semi-submerged in water, like a hippo, to reduce the stresses caused by its size.

OK, who's got the pics of Fat Ted (Drunken Murderer, MA) on the boat, with his huge belly & man-boobs? That's about the closest we'll get to an accurate representation of this RAT.

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

Ping

[ElkGroveDan]

[theDentist]

[Cicero]

I love this kind of stuff. Going out to my email list.

[beaversmom]

In related news:

Giant Rodent, 5x Bigger Than Regular Rat, One of Two Newly Found Mammals (Video)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1951659/posts

[Ancesthntr]

You posted the pic while I was typing #7. Clearly, great minds think alike!

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

FReepers rule!!

[Cinnamon Girl]

Who else checked in just to see which Dem pictures would be posted?

[ElkGroveDan]

[Clay Moore]

[ElkGroveDan]

[BigEdLB]

Darn you digger48, you beat me to it! :)

[ElkGroveDan]

[the invisib1e hand]

the Big Rat (brought to you by new york city unions).

The big loud rat, that is.

[Soliton]

Thank you for posting someone from the other team before we get to the nasty internal bickering stuff

[Muleteam1]

>>Rats the size of a car are nothing new. Ever been to Harlem<<

Ever been to New Orleans?

[Bean Counter]

Giant Rat of Sumatra *ping*

[weegee]

Ratso!

[Uriah_lost]

ROUS’s? It’s a myth...

[Waco]

The first democRAT, i bet.

[Libloather]

[x]

[SERKIT]

Henry Waxman’s long lost relative?

[JoanVarga]

Damn if all the funny stuff hasn't been posted already. *sigh*

Doesn't pay to be late to the thread.

-Joan

[Iron Munro]

"...the biggest specimens could have been more than 2.5 tonnes — about the same as hippopotamuses"

Hmm... Size of a hippopotamus? I think I have located one -

[BenLurkin]

[GreenHornet]

The fossilised skull of a rat the size of a car has been unearthed. The creature lived about four million years ago

I didn't know they had cars four million years ago.

[LexBaird]

I don’t think they really exist.

[Fiddlstix]

Hillery????

[LexBaird]

I didn't know they had cars four million years ago.

Of course they did. What else could have caused the globe to be so warm?

[RichInOC]

“ROOAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRR!!!”

[ “Here, kitty, kitty!!!” ]

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

"Giant rat that once roamed the earth"

?

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Arg. Another freeper already posted him.

Rats. .

[Mike Darancette]

Ted Kennedy is a giant RAT.

[AwesomePossum]

Sounds more like a giant nutria.........

[keepitreal]

That’s the first picture that came to my head!

[ARE SOLE]