Scientists discover new skull of great-great-grandfather of mammals – 03/22/2023 – Darwin and God

The interior of Rio Grande do Sul is not content with just being one of the main cradles of dinosaurs: it is also one of the places in the world where some of the most important fossils are found for understanding the origin of mammals. During the Triassic period, around 230 million years ago, the site was home to a considerable diversity of species from the cynodont group. They are animals that, from our point of view, may look like poorly designed rats, but which correspond to transitional forms between more primitive reptiles and our group of vertebrates.

One of the most interesting species of the group in Rio Grande do Sul from the Age of Dinosaurs can be seen below: the prozostrodon brasiliensis, about the size of a cat. Brazilian and Argentine researchers already knew about the species, but they recently found and described its most complete skull discovered so far.

You can get an excellent idea of ​​the animal’s size by comparing the top of the skull with a human hand in the image below. The analysis of the new specimen was carried out by researchers from the Support Center for Paleontological Research at the Federal University of Santa Maria (RS) and the Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences Bernardino Rivadavia.

The find took place in the municipality of São João do Polêsine. The skull was in the middle of a large rocky “package”, weighing about a ton, where the carnivorous dinosaur was also found. Gnathovorax cabreirai and herbivorous reptiles of the rhynchosaur group.

Despite the superficial resemblance to today’s rodents, the animal likely ate small vertebrates and insects. The research on the skull, which is part of paleontologist Micheli Stefanello’s doctoral thesis, is in an article in the specialized journal Journal of Mammalian Evolution.

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