this is big

[stubacca68]

Archaeologists have discovered the 100,000-year-old fossilised remains of a previously unknown giant camel species in Syria.
The bones of the dromedary were unearthed by a Swiss-Syrian team of researchers near the village of El Kowm in the central part of the country.
The animal is thought to have been double the size of a modern-day camel.
It may even have been killed by humans, who were living at the once water-rich site during the same period.
Jean-Marie Le Tensorer of the University of Basel commented: "It was not known that the dromedary was present in the Middle East more than 10,000 years ago.
Kingsize camels
"The camel's shoulders stood three metres high and it was around four metres tall, as big as a giraffe or an elephant. Nobody knew that such a species had existed," he said.
Professor Tensorer, who has been excavating at the desert site in Kowm since 1999, said the first large bones were found some years ago but were only confirmed as belonging to a camel after more bones from several parts of the same animal were recently discovered.
Between 2005 and 2006, more than 40 bone fragments of giant camels were found by the team.
The big species has been found as far back as 150,000 years ago. But fossils from other species of camel have been unearthed at the site dating as far back as one million years.
Human remains dating to the same period as the giant camel have also been discovered at the site. The radius (forearm) and tooth have been taken to Switzerland, where they are undergoing anthropological analysis.
"The bone is that of a Homo sapiens, or modern man, but the tooth is extremely archaic, similar to that of a Neanderthal. We don't know yet what it is exactly. Do we have a very old Homo sapiens or a Neanderthal?" said Dr Tensorer.

"We expect to find more bones that would help determine what kind of man it was."

El Kowm, the site where the remains were discovered along with flint and stone weapons, is a 20km (14 mile) wide gap between two mountain ranges with natural springs.

from the BBC web site

i think this find might give a few people the hump!!!
but seriously wow! its huge

[Setarime]

Nice find stubacca. That would have been one BIG animal

[Rocol]

That certainly is a big camel .. I wonder how the arab men handled those, on their long, lonely nights in the dessert

[TGLucario]

WOW thats a huge camel....must of ate a ton or 2 of food!

[baps]

now thats one huge animal,, good find sweetheart

[stubacca68]

and along the same lines

A new species of mouse found in Cyprus is delighting scientists.

Identified by researchers at Durham University, it has bigger ears, eyes and teeth than other European mice.

The scientists say it is a surviving remnant of indigenous Cypriot fauna which mostly went extinct with the arrival of humans.

Most finds of new species occur in tropical regions with sparse human populations, which makes this a highly unusual discovery.

"It was generally believed that every species of mammal in Europe had been identified," said Durham's Thomas Cucchi.

"This is why the discovery of a new species of mouse on Cyprus was so unexpected and exciting."

Human race

To understand the history of Mus cypriacus, Dr Cucchi and colleagues compared the shape of its teeth with fossils of mice collected on Cyprus.

This showed that the species had arrived well before the human colonisation of the island about 9-10,000 years ago.

Prior to this research it had been assumed to be a variant of a house mouse brought by settlers.

Much of the wildlife endemic to Mediterrannean islands died off as humans spread, bringing with them mainland species which would eat or out-compete native forms.

Dr Cucchi believes M. cypriacus is the only pre-human rodent still in existence on Cyprus, making it a "living fossil" and a small window into the island's previous fauna.

BBC website