62-Million-Year-Old Skeleton Reveals Close Evolutionary Link to Humans

Observador

Lean Right

Factuality

Ownership

What little was known about this creature was obtained through the analysis of fossilized teeth and jaw fragments. For over 140 years it has been a mystery to scientists, until now.

Popular Science

Center

Factuality

Ownership

This extinct tree-dwelling mammal may be among humans' closer relatives

Mixodectes pungens lived only a few million years after the dinosaurs went extinct.

Nature

Center

Factuality

Ownership

New remarkably complete skeleton of Mixodectes reveals arboreality in a large Paleocene primatomorphan mammal following the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction - Scientific Reports

Mixodectids are poorly understood placental mammals from the Paleocene of western North America that have variably been considered close relatives of euarchontan mammals (primates, dermopterans, and scandentians) with hypothesized relationships to colugos, extinct plagiomenids, and/or microsyopid plesiadapiforms. Here we describe the most complete dentally associated skeleton yet recovered for a mixodectid, specifically Mixodectes pungens from t…

Eurek Alert

Center

Factuality

Ownership

CUNY research team unlocks secrets of mysterious 62-million-year-old mammal

Brooklyn College/CUNY Graduate Center Associate Professor of Anthropology Stephen Chester and a team of researchers have uncovered fascinating new details about Mixodectes pungens, a long-mysterious mammal that roamed North America in the early Paleocene—just after the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Phys.org

Science Daily

Center

View article

Yale University

Lean Left

View article

+2 Reposted by 2 other sources

Center

Factuality

Ownership

A 62-million-year-old skeleton sheds light on an enigmatic mammal

For more than 140 years, Mixodectes pungens, a species of small mammal that inhabited western North America in the early Paleocene, was a mystery. What little was known about them had been mostly gleaned from analyzing fossilized teeth and jawbone fragments.

sci.news

Factuality

Ownership

Mixodectes pungens: Enigmatic Mammal from Early Paleocene was Claw-Climbing Arborealist

A small mixodectid mammal called Mixodectes pungens had skeletal features adapted to living in trees, largely dined on leaves, and weighed about 1.3 kg, according to an analysis a remarkably complete skeleton discovered in New Mexico. The post Mixodectes pungens: Enigmatic Mammal from Early Paleocene was Claw-Climbing Arborealist appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.