Scientists talked about the survival of ancient mammals after the death of dinosaurs

Paleontologists at the University of Washington have discovered a new species of an ancient mammal that lived 75 million years ago and became the ancestor of animals that survived the mass extinction. The fossil was found in Baja California, Mexico. This was reported in the journal Science Daily.

According to the researchers, Cimolodon desosai was about the size of a golden hamster. The animal moved both on the ground and in trees, fed on fruits and insects. The fossil was first discovered in 2009 by field assistant Michael de Sosa VI.

Unlike most similar finds consisting only of teeth, this specimen included teeth, a skull, jaws, and skeletal fragments—a femur and ulna. For the analysis, the scientists used microcomputer tomography and compared the teeth of the new species with those of related forms of the genus Cimolodon.

"The genus Cimolodon was a fairly common mammal in the Late Cretaceous, the last epoch of the age of dinosaurs. His remains have been found throughout western North America, from Canada to Mexico. The new species, Cimolodon desosai, was the ancestor of animals that survived the extinction. Small size and omnivorousness were two signs that gave an advantage for survival," said Gregory Wilson Mantilla, professor of biology at the University of Washington and curator of the Department of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Burke Museum.

On March 12, Popular Science magazine reported the discovery of a new species of crocodile that could prey on human ancestors. It was named Crocodylus lucivenator and lived on the territory of modern Ethiopia about 3.4–3 million years ago. The remains were discovered in Hadar, an area famous for the discovery in 1974 of a female Australopithecus Afarensis named Lucy.