The world's oldest mammal has been identified using fossil dental records -- predating the previously confirmed earliest mammal by about 20 million years -- in a new discovery hailed as 'very significant' by researchers.
The world's oldesthas been identified using fossil dental records -- predating the previously confirmed earliest mammal by about 20 million years -- in a new discovery hailed as "very significant" by researchers.
The discovery was made by researchers from the Natural History Museum in London, King's College London and the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre. The dental records in the study published Tuesday in the Journal of Anatomy date Brasilodon quadrangularis to 225 million years ago -- 25 million years after the Permian-Triassic mass extinction event --
Brasilodon is the oldest extinct vertebrate with two successive sets of teeth -- baby teeth and one permanent set -- also known as a diphyodonty, the news release said.Richter and her colleagues examined three lower jaws of the species, which lived in the region covered today by the southern-most section of Brazil. Under the microscope they discovered "the type of replacement teeth that are only present in mammals," she said.
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