SYDNEY, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) — Scientists have uncovered fossils of three previously unknown carnivorous marsupials that lived millions of years ago in what is now the northern part of the state of Queensland in Australia.
These discoveries reveal that ancient Australia hosted far more carnivorous marsupials than once thought, according to a statement released Wednesday by Australia’s University of New South Wales (UNSW).
The fossils belong to a group called malleodectids — marsupials with big, hammer-shaped rear premolars adapted to smash the hard shells of snails to eat their soft flesh, it said.
These creatures lived around 25 million years ago during a time when the region was warm, humid and forested, according to the study published in Historical Biology, a peer-reviewed journal in Britain.
Fossilized teeth suggest that snail-eating marsupials evolved slowly over millions of years alongside warmer, wetter climates and richer forests with diverse prey, like hard-bodied snails, the study said.
Malleodectids thrived for at least 15 million years, filling diverse carnivorous roles, including specialized ones like snail-eating no longer seen in today’s Australian marsupials, said UNSW paleontologist Timothy Churchill, the study’s lead author.
The three new carnivorous marsupials, weighing 110-250 grams, shared the forest with a broad range of other marsupials of various sizes that inhabited a wide range of ecological niches.
These include medium-sized marsupials similar to the now extinct Tasmanian tiger, smaller predators around the size of modern quolls, and even marsupial lions ranging from cat- to leopard-sized.
“The picture emerging is overturning old ideas that Australia was dominated by ‘simple’ marsupials while reptiles ruled the ecosystem,” Churchill said. Enditem