Fossils unearthed in China reveal a newly discovered, now-extinct species of otter that lived some 6.2 million years ago.
Fossils of a giant otter have emerged from an open-pit mine in China. The crushed cranium, jaw bone and partial skeletons of at least three animals belong to an extinct species ofAt roughly the size of a Rottweiler, the 50-kilogram otter would have far outclassed today’s giant otter, a river-dwelling South American mammal weighing about 34 kilograms. Scientists named the new speciesS. melilutra
resemble those of badgers, but other aspects of the teeth and skull make it clearly an otter, researchers concluded after CT scanning and reconstructing the fossil skull. Based on fossils found near the site, scientists believe that the otter probably lived in the shallow lake of a warm, humid swamp.
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