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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists searching for fossils high in the Andes mountains in Chile have unearthed the remains of a tank-like mammal related to armadillos that grazed 18 million years ago.
"It looks different than almost anything out on the landscape today. There really isn't anything that's comparable today in terms of its body form," John Flynn of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, one of the scientists, said in a telephone interview.
The creature, Parapropalaehoplophorus septentrionalis, was a primitive relative of a line of heavily armored mammals that culminated in the massive, impregnable Glyptodon, a two-metric ton, 10-foot(3-meter)-long ***** covered in armored plates and a spiky tail.
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"It looks different than almost anything out on the landscape today. There really isn't anything that's comparable today in terms of its body form," John Flynn of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, one of the scientists, said in a telephone interview.
The creature, Parapropalaehoplophorus septentrionalis, was a primitive relative of a line of heavily armored mammals that culminated in the massive, impregnable Glyptodon, a two-metric ton, 10-foot(3-meter)-long ***** covered in armored plates and a spiky tail.
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