rhamphotheca:Dinosaur Era Fossil Reveals Mammal With Super SensesA nearly complete skull, found acci
rhamphotheca:Dinosaur Era Fossil Reveals Mammal With Super SensesA nearly complete skull, found accidentally, belongs to the enigmatic group of ancient mammals called Gondwanatherians.Dinosaurs that roamed Madagascar more than 66 million years ago had a most unusual fuzzy mammal living in their shadows—one so large, and with such strange features, that scientists say they could have never predicted its existence.That is, until 2010, when a team of scientists looking for fish fossils accidentally collected its nearly complete skull from a site along Madagascar’s west coast.Since then, researchers have learned that the groundhog-like critter had supersensory capabilities, with a large portion of its brain devoted to smell, and that it weighed about 20 lbs (9 kg)—much more than most mammals alive during the age of the dinosaurs.Krause and his colleagues named the creature Vintana sertichi, which combines the Malagasy word for “luck” and the name of Joe Sertich, Krause’s then-graduate student. Unbeknownst to Sertich, the skull was inside a 150-lb (68-kg) chunk of Madagascan sandstone he brought back to the lab…(read more: National Geographic)photo by Joseph Groenke; illustration by Emily M. Eng, NG Staff. Source: David W. Krause -- source link