Ancient Gliding Mammal Discovered
Posted on December 19, 2006
The New York Times reports that scientists have discovered an ancient squirrel sized mammal that used to be able to glide through the trees just like today's flying squirrels. The mammal lived in China over 125 million years ago.
The mammal discovery, described in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature, was made last year in Inner Mongolia, a region of northern China. Farmers found the delicate fossil, embedded in sandstone, and brought it to the attention of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing.Researchers Yaoming Hu, Yuanqing Wang, Xiaolin Wang and Chuankui Li have named the mammal Volaticotherium antiquius, which means "ancient gliding beast." Mammals living during those dangerous times would probably have needed to be underground -- or far above it -- like our newly discovered gliding beast. The Volaticotherium antiquius seems to have survived by gliding from tree top to tree top and feasting on ancient insects of its time period.On a visit there late last winter, Jin Meng, an associate curator of paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, examined the specimen. He saw the sharp and diverse teeth of an insectivore. He then detected striations in the fossil - clear traces, he said, of hair covering a stretch membrane from fore to hind limbs that was the airfoil to support and give lift for the animal to glide.
"This was just totally out of nowhere," Dr. Meng said in an interview at the museum this week, while pointing to the fossil's telling features.
