Maotherium: Hints as to the Development of the Mammalian Ear?

Researchers digging in north eastern China say they have discovered the fossil of a previously unknown chipmunk-sized mammal that could help explain how human hearing evolved.

Paleontologists unearthed the 123-million-year-old creature, which is just 15 centimeters (five inches) long, in fossil-rich Liaoning Province, near the Chinese border with North Korea.

"What is most surprising, and thus scientifically interesting, is the animal's inner ear," said Zhe-Xi Luo, a curator at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh and one of the study's authors.

The condition of the "remarkably well preserved" three dimensional fossil has allowed an international team of researchers to reconstruct how the creature's middle ear was connected to its jaw.