A groundbreaking discovery in Mallorca, Spain, has unearthed the oldest known saber-toothed animal, a gorgonopsian, pushing back the timeline of this ancient lineage by millions of years, CNN reports.
The finding, detailed in the journal Nature Communications, provides crucial insights into the early evolution of mammals.
This newly identified gorgonopsian, dating back 280 to 270 million years, significantly predates previously discovered fossils of these predatory therapsids, which were typically found to be less than 270 million years old. The discovery fills a significant gap in the fossil record, helping to refine our understanding of the therapsid family tree – a group that includes the ancestors of modern mammals.
The fossil, remarkably well-preserved, includes the animal’s characteristic dagger-like canine teeth, parts of its jaw, vertebrae, ribs, tail bones, toe bones, and most of a hind limb. Study co-author Ken Angielczyk, MacArthur Curator of Paleomammalogy at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, estimates the gorgonopsian’s skull measured approximately 7 inches long. The animal would have been roughly the size of a medium-sized dog, weighing between 66 and 88 pounds. Despite its canine teeth, Angielczyk emphasizes that it would not have resembled a dog, lacking fur and visible ears. He cautions against referring to it as a “lizard-dog,” clarifying that gorgonopsians belong to a distinct evolutionary lineage from reptiles, though they share a distant common ancestor.
One key feature linking gorgonopsians to mammals is their differentiated teeth, each serving a specific function in the feeding process. However, unlike mammals, gorgonopsians continuously replaced their teeth throughout their lives, similar to crocodiles.
The discovery location itself is noteworthy. Previous gorgonopsian fossils were primarily found in arid, high-latitude regions of South Africa and Russia. During the Permian period, Mallorca was situated in the equatorial zone of the supercontinent Pangea, experiencing both wet and dry seasons. This suggests that important evolutionary events in mammal ancestry may have occurred in tropical environments, a hypothesis previously under-represented in the fossil record.
Senior study author Josep Fortuny, from the Miquel Crusafont Catalan Institute of Paleontology, highlights the significance of the find’s age: “It is pretty certainly the oldest known gorgonopsian,” and the oldest known therapsid to date. This discovery helps bridge a gap between the predicted evolutionary timeline of therapsids and their actual appearance in the fossil record.
Roger Benson, Macaulay Curator of Dinosaur Paleobiology at the American Museum of Natural History (not involved in the research), emphasizes the importance of this find for understanding mammal ancestry. The discovery in Mallorca, he says, hints at the potential for further discoveries of early therapsids in regions not previously explored by paleontologists.
