When you look at a reconstruction of the skull and brain of Neoepiblema acreensis, an extinct rodent, it’s hard to shake the feeling that something’s not quite right.
Huddled at the back of the cavernous skull, the brain of the South American giant rodent looks really, really small. By some estimates, it was around three to five times smaller than scientists would expect from the animal’s estimated body weight of about 180 pounds, and from comparisons to modern rodents. In fact, 10 million years ago the animal may have been running around with a brain weighing half as much as a mandarin orange, according to a paper published Wednesday in Biology Letters.
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