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Guide to Patagonia's Monsters & Mysterious beings

I have written a book on this intriguing subject which has just been published.
In this blog I will post excerpts and other interesting texts on this fascinating subject.

Austin Whittall


Wednesday, February 4, 2015

A giant rodent


Some time ago I posted about a mythical Fuegian animal, the Saapaim, and wondered if it could be an extant gigantic Patagonian rodent.


A paper (Predicting bite force and cranial biomechanics in the largest fossil rodent using finite element analysis, by Philip G. Cox, Andrés Rinderknecht and R. Ernesto Blanco. Article first published online: 4 FEB 2015 DOI: 10.1111/joa.12282) mentions this creature, the Josephoartigasia monesi, which was discovered in 2007, in Uruguay. The animal lived during the Pliocene period.


Its 30 cm (1 foot) long teeth in a body 3 m long (9 ft.) and 1.5 m high (5 ft.) must have made them formidable monsters. They are the largest rodents that have ever lived


largest rodent that ever lived

But the Josepoartigasia lived too long ago to have been seen by humans (2 to 4 Mya), but who knows if some relative survived along the Argentine side of the River Plate - Uruguay and Parana Rivers, roaming the Pampas and Patagonia.



Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2015 by Austin Whittall © 

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