Ancient platypus cousin lived alongside dinosaurs
28 February 2023 / Evrim Yazgin
Monotremes were present in South America 10 million years earlier than previously thought.
3D reconstruction of Patagorhynchus pascuali. Credit: Santiago Miner (Laboratorio de Anatomía Comparada y Evolución de los Vertebrados)
Fossils show monotremes were present in South America 10 million years earlier than previous research suggested. An ancient platypus relative found in Argentina calls into question when and where this weird egg-laying clade of mammals evolved.
The only monotremes to survive into the modern day are echidnas and platypuses which are endemic to Australia and neighbouring islands.
But fossil evidence shows that the mammalian oddballs lived in prehistoric South America as well.
More than 30 years ago, the first evidence of monotremes outside Australasia was found when a tooth from an ancient platypus, Monotrematum sudamericanum,was found in Patagonia, Argentina. That animal’s fossils were found to be 62 million years old.
More:
https://cosmosmagazine.com/history/oldest-platypus-south-america/
