Evolution. Enhanced: A rodent as big as a buffalo

Science. 2003 Sep 19;301(5640):1678-9. doi: 10.1126/science.1090964.

Abstract

The largest living rodent is the South American capybara, a creature the size of a sheep that unlike smaller rodents stands on relatively straight legs. However, as Alexander explains in his Perspective, a new fossil find in Venezuela (Sánchez-Villagra et al.) reveals that the capybara would be dwarfed by Phoberomys, a giant rodent the size of a buffalo that lived during the Miocene Epoch.

Publication types

  • Comment

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Biological Evolution*
  • Body Constitution
  • Body Weight
  • Diet
  • Energy Metabolism
  • Femur / anatomy & histology
  • Fermentation
  • Fossils*
  • Hindlimb / anatomy & histology
  • Locomotion
  • Rodentia / anatomy & histology*
  • Rodentia / metabolism
  • Tooth / anatomy & histology
  • Venezuela