Giant Armadillos The Size Of Cars Once Roamed The Earth, Say Scientists

[Buster's Uncle]

Giant Armadillos The Size Of Cars Once Roamed The Earth, Say Scientists
Anthony Pearce's Blog  5 hours ago



(Credit: SWNS)



This ancient armadillo roamed the earth millions of years ago and was the size of Volkswagen Beetle, according to scientists.

Researchers have successfully mapped the DNA of the giant Glyptodonts, which was found in South America, to discovered that it is an ancestor of the modern-day armadillo.

The huge, armoured beast weighed upwards of two tonnes and had a powerful, club-shaped spiky tail that it could use to fend off predators.

So large and tough was its shell, it is believed that early humans used them as makeshift tents.

Hendrik Poinar of McMaster University in Canada said: “Glyptodonts in fact represent an extinct lineage that likely originated about 35 million years ago within the armadillo radiation.

Fellow researcher Frédéric Delsuc added: "Glyptodonts should probably be considered a subfamily of gigantic armadillos.

"We speculate that the peculiar structure of their unarticulated carapace might have evolved as a response to the functional constraint imposed by the size increase they experienced over time.”

Their findings, presented in the Cell Press journal Current Biology, also highlight the impressive increase in glyptodonts’ size over evolutionary time.

The researchers estimate that the last common ancestor of glyptodonts and their living armadillo relatives weighed in at a mere six kilograms, suggesting a “spectacular increase in glyptodont body mass,” before they were wiped out at the end of the last Ice Age.


http://news.yahoo.com/giant-armadillos-the-size-of-cars-once-roamed-the-170153669.html