Researchers in Patagonia have discovered a fossil of a small, mouse-sized mammal that lived alongside dinosaurs and was previously unknown to paleontologists.
The discovery was announced last week in an article published in the British scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Weighing between 30 and 40 grams, Eutherium bresor lived during the Cretaceous period, about 74 million years ago, and is the smallest mammal ever discovered in this region of South America.
Hans Büchel, head of the team of scientists from the University of Chile and the Chilean Millennium Nucleus Research Center, told AFP that the fossil is "a small piece of jaw with a molar, the crown, and the roots of two other molars."
Researchers found this fossil in the Rio de las Chinas Valley, a river located in the Magallanes region of southern Chile, about 3,000 kilometers south of the capital, Santiago.
According to its discoverers, Eutherium praetor was a mammal capable of laying eggs, similar to modern platypuses, and carrying its young in a pouch like a kangaroo or opossum.
The shape of its teeth indicates that its diet consisted of relatively hard plant foods.
Like the dinosaurs that lived during the same period, this small mammal became extinct at the end of the Cretaceous Period, about 66 million years ago.
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