US researchers have discovered a fossil of a rodent in South America, which might be the largest rodent known to have existed.
In a boulder on the southern coast of Uruguay, the 53 centimetre-long skull of the new species, Josephoartigasia monesi, was discovered.
The researchers, based on the age of the rock, estimated that the skull is between two and four million years old.
"This is a remarkable finding because of the size of the animal and the fortunate completeness of the skull," Nature quoted evolutionary biologist Ines Horovitz of the University of California, Los Angeles, as saying. The scientists couldn't access other skeletal measures, such as the length of the limb bones that are traditionally used to estimate the size of an animal, because they found only the skull of the rodent.
However, the research team developed an equation relating skull length to body mass using information from 13 of J. monesi 's closest living relatives.
The calculation gave an estimate of 1,008 kilograms. Adding information from 6 other measures of skull size gave an estimate of 1,211 kilograms, with a likely range of 468 to 2,586 kilograms.
The relatively small grinding teeth in the skull suggested that J. monesi was a member of the Dinomyidae family, which contains just one living example, the pakarana. This rodent lives in South America and weighs roughly 15 kilograms.
The resemblance in molars and premolars suggest the bull-sized J. monesi had a relatively weak jaw and lived on roughly the same diet as its modern-day cousin: soft vegetation and fruit.
JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - A car-owner in the South African capital Johannesburg was driven to desperation when she found a family of Cape Hyrax, small animals that resemble guinea pigs, living in the engine of her BMW.
Hoping to shake off the short-eared, short-tailed creatures known locally as dassies she drove at high speed to a dealership on the other side of town, but failing to do so dumped the vehicle there without giving an explanation.
Astonished staff at the BMW dealership phoned Johannesburg Zoo and asked them to come and rescue the animals as the car had been abandoned in their washbay and was interfering with their work, a zoo official told AFP.
"The guys (BMW staff) called us and said that there was movement in the engine, that there were animals (there)," said collection manager at the zoo Dominic Moss.
"When we opened the bonnet the dassies were running about the engine and chassis plate, under the engine and inside the bumpers of the car," he said.
"Dassies can get quite big, the size of a cat. If you can imagine having six cats in your engine," added Moss.
The animal expert believed the dassies had chosen the BMW as their new home because its space and warmth made them think they were in the "rocks" somewhere.
"The BMW is obviously nice and warm and looks like a rocky outcrop and that's why they wanted to live in it," he said.
Judging by the amount of dung found in the car, the dassies had obviously been around for a while, he added, after the car engine had been stripped down to get at the little creatures.
"They were covered in grease and had fanbelt burns... some were badly injured," Moss said.
New Delhi, January 2 : A male tiger and female lion have fallen head over heels in love with each other at a safari park in southernmost China's Hainan Province.
Both lovebirds are over two years old and live together at the Hainan Tropical Wildlife Park and Botanical Garden. The website Photobase reported that the authorities at the wildlife park had purposely put the tiger and lion in to live together since they were just two months old, in order to produce a hybrid cub, reports China Daily.
The report said that the experiment is going well, but whether the pair will finally mate and give birth to a baby is not yet known.
The park once matched a male lion with a female tiger, resulting in the birth of nine lion-tiger hybrid cubs.
