Story at a glance
- The new research suggests mammals evolved more rapidly than previous thought after the extinction of dinosaurs.
- The mammal species include Miniconus jeanninae, Conacodon hettingeri and Beornus honeyi, the latter named in honor of “The Hobbit” character Beorn.
- “We haven’t yet fully captured the extent of mammalian diversity in the earliest Paleocene, and predict that several more new species will be described,” researchers said.
Researchers have discovered three new species of mammals that roamed the Earth just a few hundred thousand years after dinosaurs were wiped out, suggesting mammals may have diversified faster than initially thought following the mass extinction 66 million years ago.
A study published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology analyzed fossils found in Wyoming’s Great Divide Basin belonging to three creatures that are primitive ancestors of today’s hoofed animals, such as horses, elephants, cows and hippos.
Palaeontologists from the University of Colorado in Boulder dug up lower jaw bones and teeth belonging to the ancient species that lived across North America.
The mammal species include Miniconus jeanninae, Conacodon hettingeri and Beornus honeyi, the latter named in honor of The Hobbit character Beorn, due to the animal’s inflated molars, or puffy cheeks.
The character Beorn is described as a shapeshifter who could change into a bear and donned similarly puffy cheeks.
Mammals that survived the dinosaur extinction were quite small, about rat-sized, while these recently discovered mammals are a bit larger.
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Beornus honeyi was about the size of a house cat.
Researchers said the species had a unique set of dental features and may have been omnivores.
“Previous studies suggest that in the first few hundred thousand years after the dinosaur extinction (what is known in North America as the early Puercan) there was relatively low mammal species diversity across the Western Interior of North America, but the discovery of three new species in the Great Divide Basin suggests rapid diversification following the extinction,” Madelaine Atteberry, the study’s lead author, said in a statement.
“We haven’t yet fully captured the extent of mammalian diversity in the earliest Paleocene, and predict that several more new species will be described,” Atteberry said.
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