A team of Australian scientists discovered evidence of the “Monotreme Age” at the Australian Museum (AM), Museums Victoria (MV) and the Australian Opal Centre.
Scientists believe that these creatures marked their presence in prehistoric times.
The research was led by two respected mammalogists, Professor Tim Flannery and Professor Kris Helgen from the Australian Museum Research Institute (AMRI).
Close resemblance to platypus and echidna
Opalios splendens is the official name of this new species and there are many similarities to the platypus and the echidna. They are the only egg-laying mammals in the world today. Scientists point out that Australia was once known for the “Age of Monotremes”.
Rare orders of animals were abundant in these cases and also dominated.
According to Professor Flannery, it is like discovering “a whole new civilization”. This group of fossils was first discovered about 25 years ago by paleontologist Elizabeth Smith and her daughter Clytie when they were walking through the remains of an opal mine.
Professor Flannery said he came across them by accident and immediately recognized that they came from ancient monotremes.
Opalized jaws are quite strong
Opalized jaws, discovered in the Opal Fields of Lightning Ridge, NSW, are quite old, it seems, and take us back to the Cenomanian age of the Cretaceous period, which must be between 102 million and 99.6 million years old.
Flannery noted that according to research, Australia was home to a number of monotremes, the only surviving descendants of which are the platypus and the echidna.
He said: “Today, Australia is known as the land of marsupials, but the discovery of these new fossils is the first indication that Australia was once home to a diversity of monotremes. It’s like discovering a whole new civilization.”
In addition, Professor Kris Helgen, who is Principal Scientist and Director of the Australian Museum Research Institute, mentioned that there were three new species that exhibited combinations of features not previously seen in any other living or fossil monotreme.
“Opalios splendens sits in a place in the evolutionary tree before the evolution of the common ancestor of the monotremes we have today. “Its overall anatomy is probably quite platypus-like, but the jaw and snout features are a bit echidna-like — you could call it ‘echidnapus,'” Helgen said.
“The story of how our egg-laying mammals evolved is ‘toothed to toothless’ in the oldest monotreme, Teinolophos trusleri, which dates back to Victoria 130 million years ago. At Lightning Ridge, we see that 100 million years ago, some monotremes still had five molars, but some of them have up to three,” he added.
The mystery of platypus tooth loss
Flannery shared that the adult platypus has no teeth, although the young have rudimentary molars.
“Just when and why an adult platypus lost its teeth after nearly 100 million years is a mystery we think we’ve solved. “Perhaps it was competition with the Australian water rat that arrived in Australia within the last 2 million years that caused the platypus to seek out softer, slippery food, best served by the leathery pads used by adults today,” he said.
The research was published in Alcheringa: Australasian Journal of Paleontology.
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