An ancient site at Banyalbufar has brought to light a new 270 million year old fossil animal, a ‘sabretooth’ that inhabited Mallorca before the appearance of dinosaurs. It is a gorgonopsio of the family of the therapsids, a group of animals that evolved into today’s mammalsand has turned out to be the oldest in the world. It has been discovered by an international team of scientists led by Rafel Matamales principal investigator and curator of the Museu Balear de Ciències Naturals (MUCBO).
The animal, the first of this group to be discovered in the Mediterranean region, can already be seen in an exhibition that opened in November at the ‘solleric’ museum, and that can be visited until next April. The exhibition has been touring different museums of the Peninsula and now it is presented in Mallorca. It includes a life-size reconstruction of the animal in life: is similar to a medium-sized dog and measures almost one meter in length, but instead of fur it would have bare skin. It reproduced, according to researchers, by laying eggs, like reptiles and birds today. It belongs to an extinct family of carnivorous therapsids of the Permian period.
A disproportionate dentition
One of its most impressive features are its teeth, long and sharp, typical of some prehistoric carnivores. In fact, one of the fossil remains that paleontologists have found is an almost intact tuskwhich has made it possible to verify that the animal had a disproportionate dentition and was the top predator in the ecosystem of the area. The scientists who have found the remains believe that one of the potential prey of this superpredator was the tramuntanasaurusanother fossil animal discovered and described by the same researchers last year, since its remains were found in the same site, very close to the ‘sabertooth’.
Scientists also believe that this site located in Banyalbufar was millions of years ago, an ancient waterhole where animals came to drink in the driest seasons. Catalan researchers Josep Fortuny and Àngel Galobart recall that at that time Mallorca was not an island, but was part of the supercontinent Pangea, was located in the equatorial zone and its climate was arid and dry.
Parts of the skeleton
“We have not located the complete skeleton, but rather parts of the head, of the spine and of an almost complete hind leg. These fossilized bones have been more than enough to be able to affirm that the Banyalbufar ‘sabertooth’ is the oldest known mammalian ancestor on the planet,” says Matamales, the principal investigator, in a statement in which the Museu Balear de Ciències Naturals announced the discovery of this Mallorcan ‘sabertooth’ that predates the first dinosaurs.
Reconstruction of the Banyalbufar sabertooth from the pieces of the skeleton that have been found: some parts of the skull, the spine and an almost complete hind leg / MUCBO
Its location and identification has been part of an international study -financed with funds from the Consell de Mallorca- which has been published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature Communications and in which researchers from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Princeton University, the Field Museum of Chicago, the Natural History Museum of Stuttgart (Germany), the Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont and the Museu d’Isona-Conca Dellà have participated.
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