Andre Atchin
Scientists say they have been stunned by the strange appearance of a 66-million-year-old opus-sized mammal called an adalathrium – meaning “mad beast.”
“From what we know about the skeletal anatomy of living and extinct mammals, it’s hard to imagine that mammals like Adalatherium could evolve,” said David Kraze of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. “It gives a turn and breaks a lot of rules.”
On Friday, Craze, along with Simon Hoffman of the New York Institute of Technology and his team, published a 1999, 234-page study of the fossilized skeleton of ala dalatherium. They first announced the results of 20 years of research in April. Magazine Nature. The Vertebrate Paleontology Memoir Series, an annual publication that takes an important egg dive, looks at the most important vertebrate remains.
The researchers described the animal as having crocodile-like muscular limbs, powerful front legs, rabbit-like front teeth, and strange back teeth that look unlike any other known mammal. It also had an unusual space at the top and between the bones to protect the fetus in other mammals.
Adalatherium was a “giant” related to mouse-sized mammals that lived with dinosaurs during the Cretaceous period (145.5 million years to 66 million years ago). He lived in Madagascar and belonged to an endangered group of mammals called the Gondvantherians, first discovered in the 1980s.
Scientists scratch their heads at the strange appearance of ancient animals. The large claws on his muscular legs and hind legs indicate that he was a powerful digger, but his front legs were less brave, which could mean that the animal was a fast runner.
A closer look at the Adalatherium skeleton.
Simon Hoffman and Catherine Pan
Like most mammals, it had a protruding body, but its hind legs were more scattered like lizards. Then there are the teeth, which suggest vegetarian plants but remain curious. And scientists have not yet figured out the purpose of the hole at the top of the snout.
“Adalatherium is simply fantastic,” Hoffman said in the release. “For example, trying to figure out how it moved was challenging because its front end tells us a completely different story than its back end.”
Putting such a descriptive nut aside, however, could help these “crazy beasts” tell scientists a clear story of how mammals eventually evolved into mammals or some of them.
Adalatherium is an important part of a very large puzzle on the evolution of early mammals in the Southern Hemisphere, Hoffman said, “one part of which is still missing in other parts.”
