One Ton Capybara Found in South America

Atlanta, GA 1/16/2008 02:58 PM GMT (FINDITT)

What seems to be a large Capybara fossil has been discovered in a broken boulder in Rio de La Plata in Uruguay.

Anres Rinderknecth and Ernesto Blanco of the Museum of Natural History and the Institute of Physics are studying the one ton creature. According to their research, the beast lived in the estuaries and forests of South America about four million years ago.

In the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Biological Sciences’ Journal, the discovering team wrote, “We report the discovery of an exceptionally well preserved fossil skull of a new species of rodent, by far the largest ever recorded…The creature itself weighed between one and 1.4 tons. Its skull is half-a-meter long and reached a length of around three meters, assuming is body was barrel-shaped like that of a capybara.

Dr. Blanco told The Daily Telegraph that “the incisors of the mega rodent were around four inches and characteristics of its teeth suggest that it dined on aquatic plants, perhaps even fruit.”

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