An incredible skeleton unearthed in Madagascar over 20 years ago has finally been studied in detail. The well-preserved bones reveal a “crazy beast” that was unlike any mammal living today.
The creature belongs to a new genus and species called Adalatherium hui. Its genus name translates to “crazy beast,” while its species name honors researcher Yaoming Hu who helped analyze the fossil but passed away in 2008. The specimen represents a poorly understood group of mammals called Gondwanatherians, but this individual had lots of seemingly unique features. The researchers think that the uniqueness comes from the species evolving in isolation on the island of Madagascar for at least 20 million years.
“This is an absolutely exceptional specimen,” study author Simone Hoffmann, assistant professor in the department of anatomy at the New York Institute of Technology, told Gizmodo in an email. “It is really a once-in-a-life time find. Specimens of this quality and preservation are extremely rare, in particular from the southern hemisphere.”
Scientists uncovered this specimen back in 1999 as part of fieldwork in Madagascar that turned up lots of other wacky-looking fossils, like a dinosaur with its teeth pointing outward. Hoffmann joined the team in 2013 to study the skeleton for her Ph.D thesis. The scientists announced their findings today with a paper published in Nature and plan to release an even more detailed report soon...
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