Date: March 18, 2019
Source: Ohio University
Ohio
University researchers announced a new species of mammal from the Age of
Dinosaurs, representing the most complete mammal from the Cretaceous Period of
continental Africa, and providing tantalizing insights into the past diversity
of mammals on the planet.
The
National Science Foundation-funded OHIO team, in collaboration with
international colleagues, identified and named the new mammal in an article
published today in Acta Paleontologica Polonica. This nearly complete
lower jaw represents the first named mammal species from the Late Cretaceous
Period (100-66 million years ago) of the entire African continent. The
squirrel-sized animal was probably related to a group of southern hemisphere
mammals known as gondwanatherians, yet a bizarre combination of features
(including evergrowing and enamel-less peg-like teeth) make it challenging to
easily place within any group of mammals yet known, living or extinct.
The new
mammal is named Galulatherium jenkinsi,
a name based on the Galula rock unit (itself derived from one of the local
villages in the field area) and therium, Latin for beast, with the species name
"jenkinsi" honoring the late Farish Jenkins, distinguished professor
of anatomy and organismic biology at Harvard University and a strong supporter
of the Rukwa Rift Basin Project early in its development.
The type
and only specimen of Galulatherium was discovered in 2002, when Rukwa
Rift Basin Project researchers found a bone fragment eroding from
Cretaceous-age red sandstones in the Rukwa Rift Basin in southwestern Tanzania.
After painstakingly removing the rock from the delicate specimen, the team
announced the discovery of a new mammal in 2003, yet they conservatively
refrained from establishing a name for the enigmatic new species until
additional details of its anatomy could be revealed. In the intervening years,
improvements in high-resolution x-ray computed tomography enabled the team to
document detailed anatomy of the specimen and to
establish Galulatherium as a species new to science.
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