A Reptile Skull Discovered – Nearly 130-million-year-old
An ossified a reptile skull from ancient specie of reptile was discovered by a group of researchers. It lived for 130 million years because it migrated from place to place.
Different species
It seems to look like its earliest vertebrate animals. So, this may be a new discovery. Their anatomy is very similar, but they are distinct from the ecological point of view. Also, they belonged to different categories of vertebrates. They could be gliders, swimmers, carnivores, insectivores or herbivores. Because of their migration from Asia to Europe, then to the North America and further to Africa, the skull could have been to any kind of mammal. The migration continued, as the researcher found, more than 15 million years. The new species are called Cifelliodon wahkarmoosuch. The scientists brought together the previous one with the Haramiyida. It may be seen in today’s species.
About the Cifelliodon
Cifelliodon had a skull with a little mind, yet extensive olfactory globules. It uses its smell to find food, more exactly its location. Its eyes were tiny, so it could not see so well. His body mass was about 2.5 pounds. It was a small animal, compared with its today relatives, but a big one, in parallel with the animals that lived millions years ago.
This found skull is almost complete. It is the only one found from Cretaceous era, in Utah, North America.
Another discovery leads us to the theory that Cifelliodon could have lived in Africa, 15 million years later than anyone had known. We know that Europe and North America were splited by the end of the Jurassic era, 145 million years ago, so this might be true. It is thought that a “North Atlantic land bridge”, as Huttenlocker and his team of scientists affirm, could have grouped the Old and New Worlds in the Cretaceous period.
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