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Scientists have discovered a “crazy beast” mammal that lived alongside dinosaurs in Madagascar approximately 66 million years ago.
It was the size of a modern cat or opossum, according to researchers at Stony Brook University in the US. And the skeleton is the most complete for any mammal discovered in this era in the southern hemisphere.
The animal is also surprisingly large for mammals of its time, thought to be the size of mice, and they are expected to have dug to forage for food and avoid dinosaurs.
It is officially called Adalatherium hui, which literally translates from Malagasy, Madagascar’s national language, and Greek as “crazy beast” and was announced in Nature magazine.
The animal would have been the size of a cat. Pic: Nature
Professor David Krause said: “Knowing what we know about the skeletal anatomy of all living and extinct mammals, it is hard to imagine that a mammal like Adalatherium could have evolved; it bends and even breaks many rules.”
Despite reconstruction showing that the mad beast’s appearance is similar to a badger, scientists say the animal’s skeleton is actually “flamboyant,” with primitive features on its snout that have not been “seen for a hundred years. million years “in modern mammals.
“Its nasal cavity exhibits a striking mosaic of features, some of which are very standard for a mammal, but others that I’ve never seen before in anything,” explained Dr. James Rossie.
Adalatherium had more holes, or holes, in the face than any known mammal: corridors through the skull for nerves and blood vessels of what must have been a sensitive, whiskered snout.
And strangely there is a very large hole at the top of its snout for which scientists say there is simply no parallel in any known, living, or extinct mammal.
It is also unlikely that you have seen teeth in one mammal, and you had more vertebrae in your back than any other mammal from the same period.
Its skeleton was found in Madagascar. Pic: National Geographic Society / Maria Stenzel
The researchers believe that it would have evolved into such a strange creature thanks to how isolated Madagascar was from any other land, due to plate tectonics.
Separated from continental populations, the animals on the island took more than 20 million years to develop “many ridiculous characteristics,” according to Professor Krause.
