Scientists Discover Prehistoric Giant Otter Species In China

"Six million years ago, giant otters weighing more than 100 pounds lived among birds and water lilies in the wooded wetlands of China's Yunnan province."

"That's according to new research from a team of scientists who discovered a well-preserved cranium of the newly-discovered species in an open lignite mine in 2010. They recently published their findings in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology."

"The researchers concluded that this wolf-sized prehistoric creature is "two to three times larger than any modern otter species," Denise Su, the head of paleobotany and paleoecology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, tells The Two-Way."

"The fossilized cranium was nearly complete, but flattened to about an inch and a half thick. 'The bones are pretty fragile, so we couldn't really reconstruct it physically,' Su said. 'So what we did is we took CT scans of the cranium, and then we digitally reconstructed it.'"