Surprised scientists have discovered the remains of a saber-toothed vegetarian.
The leaf-crunching animal, about the size of a large dog, lived 260 million years ago in what is now Brazil, researchers report in Friday’s edition of the journal Science. Its upper canine teeth were nearly 13cm long.
Such large teeth are more often the mark of a meat-eating animal, used to capture and kill prey.
The enormous canines were probably used by the plant-eating animals to fight each other or protect against predators, said research leader Juan Carlos Cisneros of the University of Piaui in northeastern Brazil.
For example, they might have fought for territory, resources or females, like the modern musk deer, which also have a pair of large, tusklike teeth, he said via e-mail.
“These situations are extremely important for the survival of an individual and the success of a species,” he said.
Discovering animals like this “shows us how nature is extremely creative in providing solutions for several life tasks,” he said.
In addition to its saber-shaped fangs, the newly discovered animal, named Tiarajudens eccentricus, had rows of teeth on the roof of its mouth for chewing, the researchers said. The lower jaw that was found was incomplete, but they expect it would have had similar rows of teeth.
Tiarajudens was part of a group of animals known as anomodonts, sometimes called “mammal-like reptiles” and a major plant-eater of their time.
The discovery provides novel insights into early tooth differences in these ancient animals and the evolution of plant eating and its complex social interactions, said Joerg Froebisch of Humboldt University in Berlin, who was not part of Cisneros’ research team.
The evolution of saber teeth is exceedingly uncommon in plant-eating animals, Froebisch said, calling the canines in the Brazilian anomodont “extraordinary.”
He said the animal seems to belong to a new, unusual group of anomodonts that lived on the ancient southern supercontinent now called Gondwana. Before drift formed the present continents, Gondwana included what is now Antarctica, South America, Africa, Madagascar and Australia.
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
Former Chinese ministers of national defense Wei Fenghe(魏鳳和) and Li Shangfu (李尚福) were both sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve over graft charges, state news agency Xinhua reported on Thursday, underscoring the severity of the purge in the military. The armed forces have been one of the main targets of a broad corruption crackdown ordered by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) after coming to power in 2012. The purges reached the elite Rocket Force, which oversees nuclear weapons as well as conventional missiles, in 2023. Earlier this year they escalated further, resulting in the removal of the top general in
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
The Philippine Coast Guard yesterday said it deployed aircraft to issue radio warnings to a Chinese research ship in a disputed area of the South China Sea “swarming” with vessels from Beijing’s so-called maritime militia. The research vessel Xiang Yang Hong 33 (向陽紅33), which is capable of supporting submersible craft, was operating near a reef in the contested Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島), which Taiwan also claims, the Philippine Coast Guard said. The Chinese ship was deploying a service boat toward the Spratly’s Iroquois Reef on Wednesday when it was spotted by a coast guard plane, “confirming ongoing unauthorized [marine scientific research]
RSS