It’s been 255 million years since an animal now known as Ichibengops munyamadziensis, or “Scarface of the Munyamadzi River” walked the Earth. Researchers originally unearthed two partial skulls of this small “pre-mammal” creature in the Luangwa Basin in Zambia in 2009, but announced their findings in a report in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology at the end of July.
The “Scarface of the Munyamadzi River,” a Dachshund-sized, potentially venomous mammal-like reptile was discovered in Zambia.
“Discoveries of new species of animals like Ichibengops are particularly exciting because they help us to better understand the group of animals that gave rise to mammals,” said senior report author Kenneth Angielczyk of Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, in a news release.
The Ichibengops is said to have been a mammal-like reptile — referred to as a therocephalian, or “beast-head” — roughly the size of a Dachshund, with a large head and long teeth. The word “Ichibenga” is the Bemba word for “scar,” and refers to the animals strange upper jaw groove that may have functioned as a transport channel for venom.
If it really did have venomous capabilities, this would make it an anomaly among mammals or mammal-like creatures including therocephalians. Only one other type of therocephalian has been discovered that showed indications of being venomous. Today, only a few types of mammals posses this poisonous quality, such as the duck-billed platypus.
“Another surprising aspect of Ichibengops is that it had a bony bridge on the roof of the mouth separating the oral and nasal cavities,” said lead author of the report, Adam Huttenlocker, in a news release. “This is a feature found in all mammals today that permits us to chew our food and breath at the same time … indicating that a bony ‘hard palate’ evolved many times in mammals’ extinct relatives.”
A large portion of therocephalians were wiped out from the Permian Period in which they lived when the Earth’s largest mass extinction occurred about 252 million years ago. It is estimated that about 10 percent of species, including some therocephalians, survived into the following Jurassic Period, also known as the age of the dinosaurs, according to UW biology professor and curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, Christian Sidor.
Sidor was one of the researchers from the discovery team, who with help from the University of Utah’s Natural History Museum and the Integrative Research Center from the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago revealed this find.
While therocephalians were lucky enough to avoid extinction during such a cataclysmic event, they did go extinct about 8 million years later, and their process of recovery post-mass extinction is still somewhat of a mystery today.
The discovery of this “Scarface” creature provides insight into the diversity of the therocephalians group, which had not previously been studied extensively in this region, according to the findings report.
from The Big Science Blog http://ift.tt/1Eekxbe
It’s been 255 million years since an animal now known as Ichibengops munyamadziensis, or “Scarface of the Munyamadzi River” walked the Earth. Researchers originally unearthed two partial skulls of this small “pre-mammal” creature in the Luangwa Basin in Zambia in 2009, but announced their findings in a report in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology at the end of July.
The “Scarface of the Munyamadzi River,” a Dachshund-sized, potentially venomous mammal-like reptile was discovered in Zambia.
“Discoveries of new species of animals like Ichibengops are particularly exciting because they help us to better understand the group of animals that gave rise to mammals,” said senior report author Kenneth Angielczyk of Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, in a news release.
The Ichibengops is said to have been a mammal-like reptile — referred to as a therocephalian, or “beast-head” — roughly the size of a Dachshund, with a large head and long teeth. The word “Ichibenga” is the Bemba word for “scar,” and refers to the animals strange upper jaw groove that may have functioned as a transport channel for venom.
If it really did have venomous capabilities, this would make it an anomaly among mammals or mammal-like creatures including therocephalians. Only one other type of therocephalian has been discovered that showed indications of being venomous. Today, only a few types of mammals posses this poisonous quality, such as the duck-billed platypus.
“Another surprising aspect of Ichibengops is that it had a bony bridge on the roof of the mouth separating the oral and nasal cavities,” said lead author of the report, Adam Huttenlocker, in a news release. “This is a feature found in all mammals today that permits us to chew our food and breath at the same time … indicating that a bony ‘hard palate’ evolved many times in mammals’ extinct relatives.”
A large portion of therocephalians were wiped out from the Permian Period in which they lived when the Earth’s largest mass extinction occurred about 252 million years ago. It is estimated that about 10 percent of species, including some therocephalians, survived into the following Jurassic Period, also known as the age of the dinosaurs, according to UW biology professor and curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, Christian Sidor.
Sidor was one of the researchers from the discovery team, who with help from the University of Utah’s Natural History Museum and the Integrative Research Center from the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago revealed this find.
While therocephalians were lucky enough to avoid extinction during such a cataclysmic event, they did go extinct about 8 million years later, and their process of recovery post-mass extinction is still somewhat of a mystery today.
The discovery of this “Scarface” creature provides insight into the diversity of the therocephalians group, which had not previously been studied extensively in this region, according to the findings report.
from The Big Science Blog http://ift.tt/1Eekxbe
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