Adalatherium hui
| Adalatherium hui | ||||||||||||
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Upper Chalk | ||||||||||||
| 66 million years | ||||||||||||
| Locations | ||||||||||||
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Madagascar |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Adalatherium hui | ||||||||||||
| Krause et al., 2020 | ||||||||||||
Adalatherium hui was a cat-sized mammal known as the "crazy beast" that lived in Madagascar (former continent Gondwana ) 66 million years ago during the Upper Cretaceous .
The discovery of the first almost complete Adalatherium skeleton was announced in April 2020. The well-preserved skeleton - the most complete of all mammals from the entire Mesozoic Era of the southern hemisphere - was recovered from the Maevarano Formation in northwest Madagascar.
features
The fossil mammal was about the size of a house cat at around 3.1 kg and was unusually large for its time (most of the mammals that lived alongside dinosaurs were much smaller, on average mouse-sized).
Adalatherium hui had more foramina holes on its face than any other known mammal. They served as passageways for nerves and blood vessels that supplied a very sensitive snout covered with whiskers. There is also a very large hole on the tip of its snout that simply has no parallel in any known living or extinct mammal.
The structure of the teeth of Adalatherium hui differ considerably from all known mammals. Its spine had more vertebrae than any Mesozoic mammal, and one of its leg bones was oddly curved.
In the fossil, the cochlea already describes significantly more than half a turn. This does not fit with the early mammals, in which this was usually elongated.
Individual evidence
- ↑ David W. Krause, Simone Hoffmann, Yaoming Hu, John R. Wible, Guillermo W. Rougier, E. Christopher Kirk, Joseph R. Groenke, Raymond R. Rogers, James B. Rossie, Julia A. Schultz, Alistair R. Evans: Skeleton of a Cretaceous mammal from Madagascar reflects long-term insularity . In: Nature . April 29, 2020, ISSN 1476-4687 , pp. 1-7. doi : 10.1038 / s41586-020-2234-8 .
- ↑ 'Crazy beast' lived among last of dinosaurs (en-gb) . In: BBC News , April 29, 2020.
- ↑ Marooned on Mesozoic Madagascar: Researchers discover 66-million-year-old 'crazy beast' ( en ) Retrieved May 1, 2020.
- ↑ A Mad Beast: Modern Hearing, Primitive Teeth , accessed May 1, 2020
Web links
- Paleontologists Find 66-Million-Year-Old Fossil of Bizarre Mammal, from April 30, 2020 (Engl.)
- https://www.ardaudiothek.de/forschung-aktuell/verruecktes-biest-saeugetfossil-ist-fuer-die-kreidezeit-gigantisch/75049726 Stang, Michael: Research News "Crazy Beast": Mammal fossil is gigantic for the Cretaceous period