Skeleton of the Cretaceous mammal Spinolestes with preserved fur shadows. The outer ear can be seen at the upper edge of the photo (arrow). During preparation, the skeleton was transferred to a plastic matrix. Credit: Georg Oleschinski. With permission of Nature Publishing Group ====================================================================================================================== The discovery of a new 125-million-year-old fossil mammal in Spain has pushed back the earliest record of preserved mammalian hair structures and inner organs by more than 60 million years. The specimen, named Spinolestes xenarthrosus, was fossilized with remarkably intact guard hairs, underfur, tiny hedgehog-like spines and even evidence of a fungal hair infection. The unusually...