Scientists have unearthed the fossil of a creature that is furry in a quarry that is Spanish suggests that mammals had been evolved from hedge hog like spines much earlier than previously believed, based on a paper published in the journal Nature.
The fossil dates back into a time when dinosaurs were roaming the world and mammals moved about mainly through the night time. Preceding finds at the Las Hoyas Quarry in east central Spain contain reptiles, birds and frogs, yet it is the very first real mammal found there.
“There were quite specific states present at Las Hoyas that enabled it to be maintained so well,” said Thomas Martin, a professor of palaeontology in the University of Bonn, Germany.
Because of a happening called phosphatic fossilization, which maintains even tiny elements, the scientists had the ability to make use of electron microscopes to recognize individual hair shafts including some that had fused together into backs, like those and porcupines.
“This species was wiped out a number of years ago, therefore it reveals that backs evolved individually in mammals several times,” said Martin, who co-authored the study jointly with scientists from America, Spain and France.
The rat-sized creature additionally had substantial external ears that indicate it relied more on hearing than he explained. The findings add to scientists’ understanding of the varied array of mammals that had evolved by that point, some 35 million years following the very first real mammals appeared.