A Tasmanian couple on a quiet walk down to the beach a few years ago discovered a fossil that scientists say is 250 million years old.
Bob and Penny Tyson found the fossilised remains of a dicynodont, a tusked plant-eating animal that's believed to be a distant ancestor of modern mammals.
Roughly the size of a cow, it had two tusks and a horny beak.
Queensland Museum palaeontologist Andrew Rozefelds says the dicynodont lived on every continent, including Antarctica.
The ABC reports that until now, the only specimen previously found in Australia was in Queensland almost 30 years ago.
He describes the dicynodont as a ''strange-looking beast''.
''They had tusks at the front of their skull, which makes you think maybe they were a carnivore, but in fact they were a plant eater.
''They had slightly splayed legs, so their posture was quite different to say some of the modern mammals you see and they're very, very distantly related to modern mammals.''
I don't see a paper at the JVP. However, considering the journal is a little outdated from the last time they updated what's online, I'm not surprised. Previously, in Tasmania the predominant fossils were temnospondyls. And not much else.
A paper describing some of the temnospondyl remains from the formation did mention some dicynodont remains being found in Tasmania. But no paper as of yet.
ReplyDeleteUm, this was published way back in September.
ReplyDeleteRozefelds, A.C., Warren, A., Whitfield, A., & Bull, S. 2011. New evidence of large Permo-Triassic dicynodonts (Synapsida) from Australia. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 31(5): 1158-1162.