Posted on 05/23/2005 12:31:24 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Builders have found the fossil of a giant armadillo — which lived up to 2 million years ago and would have been the size of a Volkswagen Beetle — in southern Peru, an archaeologist said on Thursday.
"They were carrying out work inside a private home and stumbled upon this surprise during the digging," Pedro Luna, an archaeologist from the National Institute of Culture in the southern city of Cuzco, told Reuters.
The armadillo order first evolved around 50 million years ago in South America. The type found in Cusco was a glyptodon, one of the biggest ancient armadillos from the Ice Ages.
"It was an animal that appeared 2 million years before Christ and would have died out 10,000 to 15,000 years B.C. because of a freeze," Luna said.
He said the fossil was "almost complete" and was 6 feet 6 inches long including the tail, 3 feet 6 inches wide and with an average height of 3 feet.
He said the animal would have been the size of "a Volkswagen."
Luna said it was the fifth such fossil found since 1998 in Cusco, proving that there was a large lake and valley in the area with lush vegetation. Armadillos are herbivores.
The glyptodon — which means "carved tooth" — had short legs with clawed toes, a dome-shaped bony shell composed of plates measuring 0.4 to 2.8 inches (1 to 7 cm) thick, rings of bony armour on its tail and armour on its head.
Are they sure about the cause? I bet they were good eatin'..
I wonder if they also found a Volkswagen with the beetle.
That's one heck of a speed bump.
Slug bug?
When fossils are dug out of South America, it's traditional for Bill Clinton to try to hump it.
ping before zZz
ping before zZz
It was apparently run over by an Ice Age semi the size of a battleship.
All we need now is a 6 foot beer bottle to place between it's legs! ;-)
The earth isn't that old.
Just as in Noah's time, things lived to great ages, it was just a big old armadillo.
You have a pet armadillo? What's that like?
6 foot armadillo? That's a lot of roadkill...
Wow, How high could that thing jump??!
Not really pets, just things all over the yard, like minature bulldozers. I don't do much landscaping, which is just as well, I'd have to spend half My time shooting armadillos. They are almost blind, and very stupid, not pet material at all.
I heard it had a (fire)stone tire track on it's back.
The large tasty armadillo was never endangered until God invented 'Aggies'....
They work on my yard pretty good too. I have always heard they carried leprosy so I don't touch them.
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