It ’s potential that theplatypusis the coolest mammal on Earth . Not only do they lay eggs , they are venomous and wait like the eccentric production of a silk hat / duck / otter riot . A newfangled paper from the University of New South Wales to be published in theJournal of Vertebrate Paleontologydescribes the discovery of agiant ancient platypusthat is about twice the size of platypuses find today and it even stands to rewrite what we thought we screw about their evolutionary line .
Thediscoveryis of a single tooth and the researcher estimate the animal ’s size at approximately one m . Modern platypuses are about the sizing of a home cat , making their ancient relatives approximately reduplicate their sizing . The tooth was found in limestone at theRiversleigh World Heritagefossil site in Queensland , Australia , not far from mod day platypus territory . The fossil is presently estimated at 5 - 15 million geezerhood older , though radiometric dating will be require to confirm the geezerhood .
The fossil tooth is sharp and unlike morphological feature designate that the ancient platypus was a formidable predator that likely dined on crustaceans , fish , and perchance even turtle . This is considerably dissimilar from the platypus diet today . Today ’s platypuses only have teeth early in life . As they maturate , the tooth fall out and a spiky domiciliation forms inside the back talk to grind up worms and shellfish , while gravel is also scooped up into the mouth to help break down the nutrient .
The new giant duck-billed platypus will greatly interpolate what is hump about the evolutionary story of the duck-billed platypus . Up until now , the linage was thought to be fairly straightforward as one species bit by bit develop into the next , but this discovery shows unexpected branching in the phylogenetic tree diagram that resulted in very magnanimous brute .
The newly discovered species is being calledObdurodon tharalkooschild . “ Obduron ” is Greek for “ live tooth ” and the specific name is a nod to Tharalkoo , a character in the Australian common people story about a duck who is tangle by a weewee rat . The emerging progeny had a portmanteau word of the traits of the two creatures and were the first platypuses .
