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 This intrepid little guy now is providing the best look ever at
the mammals that thrived during the Mesozoic Era, the age of
dinosaurs.
Scientists on Wednesday announced the discovery near the Spanish
town of Cuenca of the stunningly well-preserved fossil of a
Cretaceous Period mammal named Spinolestes xenarthrosus.
It includes a complete skeleton, fur preserved at the cellular
level, hedgehog-like spines, plate-like structures of keratin known
as dermal scutes, a rounded external ear, skin pores and even soft
tissues of the liver and lung.
"Yes, indeed, it is the best-preserved mammal fossil from the
Mesozoic," University of Bonn paleontologist Thomas Martin said.
"The discovery of Spinolestes is extremely exciting for me because
it provides information on structures that we believed would never
be accessible."
University of Chicago paleontologist Zhe-Xi Luo said this "cute
furball" provides unprecedented insight into early mammals.
Spinolestes, about 9-1/2 inches (24 cm) long including its tail and
weighing 1.8-2.5 ounces (50–70 grams), was a ground-dweller capable
of occasional digging. It ate insects and worms and lived a
lifestyle similar to a hedgehog in a lush wetland shared with
dinosaurs, birds, the flying reptiles called pterosaurs and
crocodilians.
"It would look like small rat, except it has a more pointy nose,"
Luo said.
Its hair, spines and the horny scutes, similar to those of
armadillos, were preserved in exquisite detail down to the
microscopic scales forming the hair shafts, hair bulbs in the skin
and filaments making up the spines.
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"This extinct mammal combines all types of hairs and hair-related
structures of modern mammals: long guard hairs, velvet underfur,
spines and scutes," Luo added.
The fossil is 65 million years older than the next-oldest record of
microscopic structures of hair in mammal fossils.
Abnormally truncated hairs indicated Spinolestes had a fungal
infection, dermatophytosis, common in mammals today.
Spinolestes, meaning "spiny robber," resembled an African rodent
called a spiny mouse although it was not closely related to any
living mammalian group.
It was a member of a primitive mammalian group called eutriconodonts
that arose 170 million years ago and went extinct 66 million years
ago along with the dinosaurs after an asteroid impact.
The research was published in the journal Nature.
(Reporting by Will Dunham; Editing by Mohammad Zargham)
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'Cute
furball' is best-preserved mammal from dinosaur age
