When you purchase through links on our site , we may pull in an affiliate commission . Here ’s how it do work .
Researchers in Colorado have discovered the fossilized skull of a bantam , now - extinct mammal that lived around 65 million class ago , in the backwash of the dinosaur - killing asteroid strike .
The newly identified mintage , Militocodon lydae , was around the size of a Chinchilla laniger and weighed up to 1 Irish pound ( 455 gram ) , yet it was part of a group that in all likelihood gave ascension to New leg it mammalian , such as cows , deer and pigs .
An artist’s reconstruction of Militocodon lydae.
M. lydaehelps researcher understand how mammals evolved into different forms after nonaviandinosaursdisappeared during the Cretaceous - Paleogene ( K - Pg ) mass experimental extinction event 66 million years ago .
" Rocks from this musical interval of time have a notoriously poor fossil platter , and the find and description of a fossil mammal skull is an crucial gradation forward in document the early diversification of mammalian after Earth ’s last mass extinction,“Tyler Lyson , conservator of vertebrate fossilology at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science , say in astatement .
Lyson and his confrere documented their findings in a cogitation publish April 30 in theJournal of Mammalian Evolution .
An artist’s reconstruction of Militocodon lydae.
Related : Final moments of dinosaur and mammalian ’s epic ' deadly fighting ' battle preserved by volcanic eruption
M. lydaelived around 65.43 million years ago , during the Paleocene epoch ( 66 million to 56 million years ago ) , about 610,000 years — not long , in geological terms — after the mass extermination at the close of theCretaceous period .
The team identifiedM. lydaefrom skull and jaw dodo collected in the Corral Bluffs area near Colorado Springs in 2016 and 2020 . The genus name , Militocodon , honor museum unpaid worker and retired instructor Sharon Milito , who discovered the first specimen in 2016 . The coinage name , " lydae , " honors investor and philanthropist Lyda Hill , who abide the Denver museum ’s post - K - Pg retrieval research .
— Low water levels in Lake Powell reveal ' extremely rare ' fogy from extinct Jurassic mammal relative
— mammalian lived alongside some of the earlier dinosaur , controversial study claims
— Temperature inside Chicxulub volcanic crater after dinosaur - killing asteroid hit bring out with ' paleothermometer '
The team used high - resolution hug drug - rays to create 3D reconstruction of the fossils as a part of their psychoanalysis . M. lydaebelongs to the Periptychidae family , and its teeth are alike to those of other periptychids , according to the study .
Researchers still have a fate to learn about periptychids and other Paleocene mammals . However , M. lydaeappears to be an medium phase between some of the other members of the group .
The teeth ofM. lydaefit in evolutionary terms between the more ancestralMimatutagenus and the more recentOxyacodongenus . The researchers demonstrated this in the study by lining up diagrams of a tooth from each genus .
