Scientists have discovered the 280 million-year-old remains of a predator that gave rise to all mammals.
This ancient animal, which does not have a genus name, is a member of an evolutionary group called gorgonopsians – a distant relative of mammals – which are saber toothpaste.
They were four-legged, slightly reptilian-looking animals that eventually gave birth to mammals about 200 million years ago.
Co-author Ken Angielczyk said: ‘Gorgonopsies are more closely related to mammals than any other animal.
‘Although they are not our direct ancestors, they are related to species that were our direct ancestors.’
The newly discovered fossil – which includes fragments of a skull, vertebrae, and ribs of a well-preserved femur – belonged to a beast with blunt teeth like dogs that researchers believe may be the oldest therapsiid ever discovered.
Until now, the oldest known gorgonopsians lived about 265 million years ago, but these fossils are 15 million years old.
They were excavated in Mallorca, a Spanish island in the Mediterranean Sea. Back when the gorgonopsians roamed the earth, Mallorca was part of the supercontinent Pangea.
Fossils of the famous gorgonopsians have allowed researchers to recreate what these ancient mammals looked like when they were alive.
Gorgonopsians were cute dog-like creatures that roamed the earth 280 million years ago, new discoveries show.
“If you saw this animal walking down the street, it would look a little bit like a medium-sized dog, maybe the size of a husky,” said Angielczyk, a naturalist at the Field Museum in Chicago. words.
‘But it can’t be good. ‘It didn’t have any fur, and it wouldn’t have ears like dogs. But it’s the oldest animal scientists have ever found with long, canine-like teeth,” he added.
The saber teeth indicate that the animal was a predatory animal during its lifetime, and proved that it was a scavenger.
The presence of an almost complete leg also helped researchers to determine how the animal moved.
Analysis of the leg fossils showed that the gorgonopsians ‘walked in a way that was intermediate between reptiles and animals’ which was more efficient at walking and running than the movement of true reptiles.
Angielczyk and colleagues at the Field Museum teamed up with researchers from the Catalan Institute of Paleontology Miquel Crusafont in Barcelona, in Spain to search and analyze the fossils.
They published their findings today in a journal Nature Communications.
Gorgonopsian fossils were found at a site in the Mallorcan city of Banyalbufar.
The newly discovered artifacts include fragments of the skull, vertebrae, and ribs from a well-preserved female.
The presence of an almost complete leg also helped researchers to determine how the animal moved
The saber teeth indicate that the animal was a predator during its lifetime, and confirmed that it ate
‘The amount of remains is amazing. We have found everything from fragments of the skull, vertebrae, and ribs to a very well-preserved femur,” said lead author Rafel Matamales, a researcher at the Catalan Institute.
‘In fact, when we started this excavation, we never thought that we would find so many fossils of this type of animal in Mallorca,’ he added.
In addition, the researchers were surprised to find an example of this type in the Balearic Islands, as the known remains of gorgonopsians were found in high altitude areas such as Russia or South Africa until now.
But this is not the first time that these small Spanish islands have produced fossils.
The world’s oldest mosquito was found there, as well as nearly a thousand species of ammonoids, or cephalopods related to primates, the ancestors of horses and hippos, giant sharks and giant coral reefs, according to researchers.
The fact that this newly discovered gorgonopsian predates its closest relatives by tens of millions of years changes scientists’ understanding of how therapsids evolved, the researchers concluded in a statement.
And because therapsids are the ancestors of mammals, the discovery also sheds light on when and how humans evolved.
‘Before the age of the dinosaurs, there were ages of ancient relatives of mammals. “Many of the ancient relatives of mammals looked very different from how we think of mammals today,” Angielczyk said.
But they were completely different and played different roles in the universe. The discovery of these fossils is yet another puzzling aspect of how mammals evolved.’
