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A saber - toothed squirrel - like mammalian from the Age of Dinosaurs is shedding Light Within on just how various our distant ancestors might have been , researchers said .
With itssuperlong fangs , foresighted snout and big eye , the black eye - size animal bears an strangely spectacular resemblance to the fictional sabre - toothed squirrels depicted in the computer - recreate " Ice Age " film , scientists added .
An illustration of the saber-toothed squirrel-like mammal known asCronopio dentiacutusreveals the creature’s striking resemblance to Scrat in the film “Ice Age."
This newfound creature is namedCronopio dentiacutus — Cronopioafter thebizarre , fictional beastscentral to many narration by Argentine writer Julio Cortázar , anddentiacutusfrom Latin , meaning " incisive , acute tooth . "
The creature ’s fangs would ’ve been about 0.2 inch ( 5 millimeters ) long , about one - fifth the length of its head .
" It look more or less like Scrat , the cavalry sword - toothed squirrel from ' Ice Age , ' " said research worker Guillermo Rougier , an anatomist and vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Louisville in Kentucky . " The comparison with Scrat is superficial , but it just choke to show how various ancient mammals are , that we can just opine some freaky critter and later find oneself something just like it . "
It rest unsettled whatCronopiomight have used its oversized fangs for , but long canine teeth in mammals nowadays are establish mostly in louse - eater .
" Modern - day insectivores use long canines mostly to just catch and hold quarry , " Rougier said . " Still , we do n’t have life parallels with any canines quite as long as visit inCronopio — it ’s just beyond the scales we know . "
The scientist discovered the previously unknown 100 - million - year - old species in a very arid , outback part of southwesterly Argentina , which has yieldedabundant skeletons of dinosaursand small vertebrates in the yesteryear .
" It looks like another planet , " Rougier said of the web site in Argentina . " The blanched bones are quite visible against the burnished red sandstone we ascertain here . "
In contrast , whenCronopiowas alive , " the surface area was a river floodplain with numerous other brute , includinglarge carnivorous dinosaurs , great herbivores , terrestrial crocodiles , turtles , lizardlike sphenodontians and snakes , " Rougier said . " We do not know much about the flora , but there were at least some marvelous conifer . "
" The area had periodical floods , " he add together . " This is probably what originally bury the animals . "
Rougier suggestedCronopiowas potential target for crocodile and carnivorous dinosaur . In routine , it believably eat up insects , grubs , other variety of invertebrates and perhaps some small vertebrates .
" Cronopio ’s skull was not designed to support large force , so it could not use its saber - dentition towrestle down fair game like lionscan with their eyetooth , " Rougier observed .
The mammalian that endure in South America during the Age of Dinosaurs remain largely a mystery story . Until now , researchers had only encounter one mammal skull in South America that dated back to the Age of Dinosaurs , a 130 - million - class - previous creature the size of a small possum namedVincelestes neuquenianus . Cronopiois now the only other mammalian known from this clock time , helping filling in an enigmatical 60 - million - year disruption in the continent ’s prehistory of mammals .
" The amount of information we have about mammalian that lived during this time in South America is highly meager — the new finds represent by far the secure specimen known from that clock time and seat , " Rougier told LiveScience .
Cronopiobelonged to a group of primitive , out beasts have sex as dryolestoids , which once were part of the lineage leading to marsupials and mammals with placentas such as humans . Dryolestoid remains have been found before , in the main in the northern continents — this new discovery , which is significantly different from retiring findings , reveals this radical of animate being reached unsuspected story of kind . [ Marsupial Gallery : A Pouchful of Cute ]
The scientist have determine two partial skulls and jaw so far . The first specimen , unearthed in 2002 , was reveal by the expedition ’s mechanic . These fogey present the first clock time scientist could reconstruct the whole shape of a dryolestoid skull — they have feature film previously check in naive mammals that paved the way forthe development of marsupialsand eutherian mammal , such as the evolution of certain cardinal web of blood vessels .
" Now we have a mammal as a starting point for further study of the lineage of all mammal , humans included , " Rougier said .
The scientist detail their findings in the Nov. 3 effect of the journal Nature .
