Ancient armadillos as big as VW beetles once roamed the Earth

An ancient species of armored animal that weighed upwards of a ton has recently been identified as part of the armadillo family by an international team of researchers.

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Frederic Delsuc, one of the team members of the study, has stated that the creatures, called glyptodonts, "should probably be considered a subfamily of gigantic armadillos."

This determination was made based on an analysis of 12,000-year-old DNA. The lineage is believed to have branched off about 35 million years ago, resulting in a massive shelled animal.

Glyptodonts likely lived in current-day South America until they became extinct around 10,000 years ago.

While they are thought to have had a similar shape to today's armadillos, one marked difference other than size is that their shell was one continuous piece rather than demarcated into segments.

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