A small rat-like fossilized mammal has been found with its fur, skin and organs still visible.
The remains, unearthed in a quarry near Cuenca in central Spain, include an ear lobe, lung and liver fossilized along with its furry pelt and tiny hedgehog-like spines on its lower back that likely protected it from predators.
Researchers even found evidence of a fungal skin infection in the remains.
Named Spinolestes xenarthrosus, the insect-eating furball was discovered in 2011 when fossil hunters at the Autonomous University of Madrid were prising apart thin leaves of fine limestone sediment in the Las Hoyas quarry.
“The preservation of its soft parts is stunning,” said Thomas Martin, a professor of paleontology at the University of Bonn who studied the fossil. “The hairs have the same structure and diversity as those seen on modern mammals.”
Small, stiff spines on the animal’s lower back are thought to have offered some protection from predators such as pelecanimimus, a many-toothed, 1m-long dinosaur.
The back spines might have come off easily, filling predators’ mouths with hard, rigid spikes. These defenses were bolstered by tiny scales on the animal’s lower back, much like an armadillos’ plates.
Spinolestes, meaning “spiny robber,” belongs to an extinct lineage of mammals called triconodonts. At 24cm long and no more than 70g, it was no bigger than a modern rat.
The specimen had fossilized soft tissues in the thorax and abdomen. Tiny bronchiole structures of the lung were found in the remains, along with reddish, iron-rich residues from the liver. The parts were separated by what appears to be a diaphragm.
Some of the hairs on the creature were unusually short, which the scientists describe in the journal Nature as evidence for a fungal skin infection.
In a separate report published in the journal, Plos One, researchers in Belgium described a prehistoric nest of baby Saurolophus dinosaurs complete with egg shells.
Leonard Dewaele at Ghent University and colleagues found the remains of three or four babies with two broken egg shells at a site called Dragon’s Tomb in Mongolia.
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