Ancient Bone Analysis Reveals Echidnas' Aquatic Ancestry
- Scientists published a study on April 29, 2025, revealing that a 108-million-year-old humerus found in southeastern Australia belonged to Kryoryctes cadburyi, an ancestral monotreme.
- This finding challenges the previous belief that echidnas evolved from exclusively land-dwelling ancestors, as evidence suggests they descended from semi-aquatic monotremes.
- Researchers analyzed the bone's internal structure and discovered it differed from the light bones of modern echidnas and resembled traits supporting a semi-aquatic lifestyle like the platypus.
- Co-Author Professor Suzanne Hand explained that echidnas likely originated from a semiaquatic ancestor that transitioned to living on land, a shift that is considered highly uncommon.
- The study implies that echidnas adapted to land through bone structure changes, highlighting a rare evolutionary transition from water to land among mammals and encouraging further fossil research.
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74 Articles
Ain't no party like an echidna party!
A Tasmanian short-beaked echidna named Adelaide recently turned 56, and the video footage from her birthday party is bringing me joy! She was presented with a beautiful cake that *looked* to be chocolate with purple frosting—but it was really made out of some of her favorite foods, meal worms and chicken puree dyed with animal-safe food coloring! — Read the rest The post Ain't no party like an echidna party! appeared first on Boing Boing.
Ancient echidnas leave palaeontologists scratching their heads with bones suggesting underwater ancestry
A small bone found 30 years ago has been reanalysed revealing perhaps the stem ancestor of platypus and echidnas went through an “extremely rare” evolutionary change. Platypus and echidnas are the only surviving members of the monotreme family. This includes the only mammals to lay eggs rather than giving birth to live young. For this reason, they are considered relics of early mammal evolution. Fossils of monotremes have been found in South Ame…
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