Scientists found the 250-million-year-old fossil of this prehistoric "platypus" in China's Jialingjiang Formation.
(L. Cheng et al, Scientific Reports, Creative Commons 4.0)
Posted on 01/25/2019 8:50:16 AM PST by ETL
Just like the modern platypus, this 250-million-year-old, Triassic-age marine reptile likely used its cartilaginous bill to discover and seize its next meal, a new study finds.
"This animal had unusually small eyes for the body, only rivaled by some living animals that rely on senses other than vision and feed in the dusk or darkness — for example some shrews, badgers and the duck-billed platypus," said study lead researcher Ryosuke Motani, a paleobiologist at the University of California, Davis.
"So, it most likely used tactile senses [with its] platypus-like bill to detect prey in the dusk or darkness." ..."
Previously, scientists had only partial, headless fossils of the creature, known scientifically as Eretmorhipis carrolldongi. But about a decade ago, study co-researcher Cheng Long, of the Wuhan Center of China Geological Survey, and his team were invited by the government of Yuan'an County, Hubei province, to excavate the lower Triassic Jialingjiang Formation. It was there that they unearthed a spectacular E. carrolldongi specimen, including its tiny head, Long said. ..."
The 2.3-foot-long (70 centimeters) E. carrolldongi had a lengthy, rigid body, four flippers and triangular bony blades sticking out of its back, "somewhat like in the dinosaur Stegosaurus — [it's] very bizarre looking," Motani told Live Science. The critter likely ate soft invertebrates, such as shrimp and possibly worms.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Cool!
The platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus), sometimes referred to as the duck-billed platypus, is a semiaquatic egg-laying mammal endemic to eastern Australia, including Tasmania.
Together with the four species of echidna, it is one of the five extant species of monotremes, the only mammals that lay eggs instead of giving birth to live young.
Looks like the design committee woke up with severe hangovers on a Monday morning.
The unusual appearance of this egg-laying, duck-billed, beaver-tailed, otter-footed mammal baffled European naturalists when they first encountered it, with some considering it an elaborate hoax. It is one of the few species of venomous mammals: the male platypus has a spur on the hind foot that delivers a venom capable of causing severe pain to humans.
Now with Stegosaurus plates!!
We report two new specimens of one such marine reptile, Eretmorhipis carrolldongi, from the Lower Triassic of Hubei, China, revealing superficial convergence with the modern duckbilled platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus), a monotreme mammal. ..."
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-37754-6
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The platypus gets more and more bizarre all the time. It makes me wonder if God was stoned when He created it.
The Platypus has always been my favorite animal. So unique. I have a stuffed animal I picked up in Australia on deployment that I have kept on my desk or in my car for nearly 30 years - named it Plato.
There is a hilarious skit - I’ll have to go find it - about God creating the platypus with leftover parts and saying something like “hey Darwin screw you” or “this will really mess with’em”.
It is finds like this that make me think that some ‘dinosaurs’ actually survived up until prehistoric times, when man could see them. The ‘dragon’ mythological as it is is really a ‘dinosaur’ that lived among men, who hunted it to extinction, then generations of embellishments added ‘breathing fire’ and flying wings’ etc.
Tales of the ‘dragon’ is in every civilization’s remote past. There must have been a common element....................
Sounds like the Ford Edsel of evolution.
Pelosi...
Thanks ETL.
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