Bizarre Fossil of Crazy Beast-Adalatherium Discovered, Lived with Dinosaurs

Fossil of Crazy Beast

Fossilized remains have been discovered by researchers of a strange creature that used to roam around the Earth in our distant past. This creature is considered to be the missing piece of the puzzle in the southern hemisphere for the early mammalian evolution and has been named Adalatherium. This is an important creature for the evolutionary history of mammals in the ancient southern supercontinent of Gondwana as bizarre creature dates to 66 million years back.

Adalatherium Lived South

This Sothern hemisphere is referred to as the region identified as South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia, and the Indian Subcontinent including the Arabian peninsula. The “crazy beast” is the translation for the name Adalatherium and fossils which are found out are very well preserved and nearly complete skeleton. It is one of the very first such skeletons discovered this complete for any mammal which dates back itself to before the era of dinosaurs extension.

Strange features

Adalatherium is considered to be the giant relative to mammals that are mouse-sized living during the Cretaceous era. Strange features were discovered from the skeleton of the creature like muscular hind limbs placed in a sprawling position analogous to a modern crocodile, more trunk vertebrae than most mammals, and for sprinting are the front legs. The back teeth are similar to the ones found in any other living or extinct mammal but the front teeth resemble that of the rabbit.

Strange gaps in the bones were also noted in Adalatherium at the top of its snout. The size of the creature can be compared to that of the modern opossum and shared its habitat with the dinosaurs and gigantic crocodiles on Madagascar at the end of the Cretaceous period. It was the ancestors of the extinct category of mammals who were known by the name gondwanatherians which were discovered in the 1980s.

But in the previous studies, these mammals were only represented by teeth and jaw fragments but now with this full skeleton, a new path for a whole new study could carry forward.  But many new questions arise with this discovery too due to the strange features.