A BIZARRE mammal-like reptile with the body of a pig, the beak of a turtle and tusks of a walrus survived in a remote corner of ancient Gondwana for more than 100 million years after its supposed extinction, claim two Australian palaeontologists.
Tony Thulborn and Susan Turner of Monash University in Melbourne took a fresh look at six fragments of fossilised skull uncovered in north-central Queensland in 1914. They conclude that the 105-million-year-old bone belongs to a dicynodont 鈥� a creature believed to have gone extinct about 220 million years ago. If true, this means dicynodonts lived well into the age of the dinosaurs.
Thulborn and Turner admit that the discovery 鈥渋s so extraordinary, it deserves exceptionally rigorous investigation鈥� (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, DOI: 101.098/rspb.2002.2296).
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