Resembling a guinea pig grown to the size of a buffalo, the animal lived millions of years ago in a South American swamp and is thought to be history's biggest rodent, researchers say this week in the journal Science.

"Imagine a weird guinea pig, but huge, with a long tail for balancing on its hind legs and continuously growing teeth," said Marcelo R. Sanchez-Villagra of the University of Tubingen in Germany. He is the first author of the study.

The formal name of the rodent is Phoberomys pattersoni. The last term is in honor of Brian Patterson, a Harvard professor who led a fossil-collection expedition to Venezuela in the 1970s. Informally, the skeleton is called Goya.

It was unearthed in a semidesert area of Venezuela, about 250 miles west of Caracas.

Sanchez-Villagra said that when Goya lived, some 6 million to 8 million years ago, the area was a lush paradise for the large plant eater.

"At the time it was forested and swampy with a big river and a lot of vegetation," he said.

The giant rodent grazed on grasses, which he must have eaten in large amounts to support his great size. Goya had fur, a smooth head with small ears and eyes, and that large tail that enabled it to balance on two hind legs to watch for predators, said Sanchez-Villagra.

And there were a lot of meat eaters who probably preyed on Goya, he said.

"We know that there were crocodiles in the same location where we found this animal," said Sanchez-Villagra. "They were some of the largest crocs ever - more than 10 meters (33 feet) long."

Goya also had to worry about large carnivores called marsupial cats, and huge flesh-eating birds called phorracoids, he said.

Phoberomys pattersoni lived during a time when South America was isolated from the rest of the world. The isthmus of Panama had not linked the two Americas, and the southern animals evolved independently of those on the other continents.

That changed about 3 million years ago. The shifting land masses became joined at what is now Panama and animals from the two Americas began to mix. That may have spelled the demise of Goya, although it remains a mystery exactly why the animal went extinct, said Sanchez-Villagra.

"Many animals from North America made it to South America and many from the south went north," he said. "When that happened, many of the animals from South America became extinct because of competition."

In an analysis of the Sanchez-Villagra study, R. McNeill Alexander of the University of Leeds, England, wrote in Science that the large rodent may have died out because it simply couldn't escape predators.

Alexander said most rodents are small enough to escape to holes in the ground when threatened, but Phoberomys pattersoni was too large to burrow. As do most large animals, it would have to depend on running to escape a predator. Alexander said that suggests this question: "Would large rodents generally be too slow to be successful?"

Sanchez-Villagra said Goya's skeleton, particularly the leg bones, suggests that it walked differently from most modern rodents, such as its close cousin the Guinea pig. Mice, rats and guinea pigs scamper along in a crouched position, with legs bent at the knee and elbow.

Because of Goya's mass, however, it had to stand straight, more like a sheep than a mouse.

As a result, Alexander wrote in Science, "Seen from a distance, it would have looked much more like a buffalo than like a scaled-up guinea pig."

An analysis of Goya's teeth show they were ideally adapted for eating grasses. Sanchez-Villagra said chewing tough grasses can eventually wear out the teeth. But in Goya, the teeth were constantly growing so they remained at the length needed to grind up grass.

Sanchez-Villagra said the closest living relative to Phoberomys pattersoni is probably the pacarana, a slow-moving rodent that can grow to 33 pounds and lives in the tropical forest of the western Amazon River basin. It is considered rare. The largest living rodent is another South American animal, the capybara, which can weigh up to 110 pounds. The most common rodents are mice, which weigh one to two ounces, and rats, which can weigh up to 10 ounces or more. The rodent clan also includes squirrels, beavers and prairie dogs.

aww i wanna pet it

conch5184 said:

You could ride it!

I hate mice and rats as it is. Can't imagine what I'd do if I saw one of THOSE fuckers coming after me!

Still, as long as it was docile, I'd leave it alone...and hope to God it left ME alone!

You sure could Apple.

Peoples edit
[This message was edited Tue Oct 7 12:59:29 PDT 2003 by TwIsTeDmInD]

"Imagine a weird guinea pig, but huge, with a long tail for balancing on its hind legs and continuously growing teeth,"


*imagining*
.
.
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[This message was edited Tue Oct 7 13:05:13 PDT 2003 by Christopher]

Christopher said:

You know, you could have just looked at the picture.

TwIsTeDmInD said:

yes but the continuously growing teeth bit got me thinking

* thinking that jessica simpson would look at the headline and the pic and think the pic was a buffalo *

:O

The ones running along the tracks of the NYC subway system are still that big.

Poor Richard Gere!

conch5184 said:

*Nods in agreement..."nick these buffalo look all weird.." *

"... Its says that its a rodent, but it says to imagine a buffalo... which is it Nick?"

You'd need a huge cage for those beasts! It'd have to go into the garage.

UptownDeb said:

I was so thinking that same thing...

You would need one of these bad boys!

:O Someone must REALLY hate rodents! They gave my thread 0 stars

5 stars because it's just so cute *cootchie cootchie coo* i'm sure it won't hurt me...

mcmeekle said:

OH THATS SO GREAT!

Rodent attack edit
[This message was edited Tue Oct 7 14:01:10 PDT 2003 by TwIsTeDmInD]

conch5184 said:

It DOES look pretty calm

ow my arm...what are you supposed to do when the blood is spurting out and bright red?

Um, back away from the rodents?

Sounds interestin... , must come back to read more completely.

Off to write a paper and read info on New World and Pacific Civilzations (Cultures of America, Asia and the Pacific). Have a presentation due here soon.

I like your mind, it's so ish.

Hey... I have read about them.

~Gotta run...

minds unite. *smile*

(me)

Or am I all alone on this.

Oh, Im here for it.