News Paleontology

Early mammal had newfangled fangs

By Sid Perkins

- More than 2 years ago

A tiny mammal that lived in Colorado about 150 million years ago had hollow teeth that lacked enamel, a characteristic that didn’t reappear in mammals for another 100 million years.

DIGGING FOR MEALS? The teeth and the limb and foot bones of this chipmunk-size creature suggest that it fed on insects such as termites. M. Klingler/Carnegie Museum of Natural History

Paleontologists report in the April 1 Science that they have unearthed the lower jaw, skull fragments, and about 40 percent of the rest of the skeleton of the chipmunk-size creature, a new species that its discoverers have dubbed Fruitafossor windscheffeli.