World’s Largest Rodent: Buffalo-Size Fossil Discovered
Publication: National Geographic News Date: September 22, 2003 View ArticleThe fossil remains of a giant rodent that weighed an estimated 1,500 pounds (700 kilograms) is helping scientists form a clearer image of what northern South America was like some eight million years ago.
Heralded as the world’s largest rodent, Phoberomys pattersoni looked more like a giant guinea pig (Cavia porcellus) than an oversized house rat (Rattus rattus) and it apparently flourished on a diet of vegetation, not scraps dropped on the kitchen floor.
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