Giant rodents, massive marsupials

Cow-sized guinea pigs grazed the riverbanks of South America about five million years ago, confirms a newly found skeleton.

This biggest-ever rodent, Phoberomys patersoni, shared its home with two-metre turtles, ten-metre crocodiles and three-metre carnivorous birds. "It was a land of giants," says co-discoverer Marcelo Sánchez-Villagra of the University of Tübingen, Germany. . .

Meanwhile, the world record for the largest-ever marsupial has just doubled2. Diprotodon optatum, a sort of immense wombat, weighed in at about 2,800 kg - not the 1,175 kg previously suggested - calculate Stephen Wroe and his colleagues at the University of Sydney.

Posted by David on September 18, 2003 9:28 PM