News Paleontology

A flexible bone that helps mammals chew dates back to the Jurassic Period

The structure may have helped give rise to the Age of Mammals, a new fossil suggests

Microdocodon gracilis fossil

JURASSIC CHEWER  This fossil of the shrew-sized mammal ancestor Microdocodon gracilis, which lived about 165 million years ago, reveals that the shape of the hyoid, a flexible bone that aids in chewing, is similar to that of modern mammals. 

Z.-X. Luo/Univ. of Chicago

By Carolyn Gramling

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