Adorable Terror: Wolf-Size Otter Hunted Ancient China
Source: LiveScience
Adorable Terror: Wolf-Size Otter Hunted Ancient China
By Laura Geggel, Senior Writer | January 23, 2017 07:00am ET
A fearsome, wolf-size otter with a large head and a powerful jaw once swam around the shallow, swampy waters of ancient China, likely hunting for clams and other shellfish, a new study finds.
The 6.2-million-year-old beast is among the largest otter species on record, the researchers in the new study said. At 110 lbs. (50 kilograms), the animal would have been about twice the size of the modern-day South American giant river otter (Pteronura brasiliensis) and about four times the size of the Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra), the researchers said.
"This extinct otter is larger than all living otters," said study lead researcher Xiaoming Wang, a curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County in California.
Researchers discovered the otter's remains in 2010, after a Chinese and U.S. field team found a nearly complete skull in Shuitangba quarry, located in southwestern China.
[font size=1]-snip-[/font]
Read more: http://www.livescience.com/57584-ancient-giant-otter-was-wolf-size.html
___________________________________________________________________________
EDIT: The new species' scientific name is Siamogale melilutra.
Related: A new otter of giant size, Siamogale melilutra sp. nov. (Lutrinae: Mustelidae: Carnivora),... (Journal of Systematic Paleontology)
[font size=1]The wolf-size otter lived in a shallow swamp surrounded by thick vegetation.
Credit: Mauricio Antón[/font]
= new reply since forum marked as read
❤