250 million year old fossil seen anew with modern technology

Details of an ancient cousin of modern mammals are revealed for the first time. Hi-tech scans of the ancient fossil, which was trapped in sandstone from around 252-254 million years ago, are providing experts with valuable insight into the animal’s anatomy and evolution.

A study published in Zoological Journal of the Linnean Societywas carried out in collaboration with the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, the University of Birmingham and the Hunterian Museum.

The pig-like animal, which belonged to a species called Gordonia traquairi, lived before the dinosaurs when the Earth consisted of a single landmass known as Pangea.

It comes from an extinct group of species known as dicynodonts, which are characterized by their stocky bodies, beaks and tusks.

These creatures lived relatively soon before the worst mass extinction event in history, the Great Dying, which occurred about 252 million years ago and wiped out much of life on Earth.

The specimen, known as the Elgin Marvel, is among the best preserved of a series of fossils collected near Elgin in northeast Scotland. These are collectively called Elginian reptiles, although some, such as Gordonia, are more closely related to mammals.

A team of experts led by the University of Edinburgh took micro-CT scans – high-resolution 3D imaging – of the cavities made by the animal in sandstone rock before its bones degraded.

Their scans offer a three-dimensional representation of the anatomy of the skull, including details of the brain.

These insights can help understand likely animal behavior and the underlying biology and offer clues to the evolution of this and other species.

The animal shares many physical features with similar fossils found in China, suggesting that dicynodonts diversified across the globe shortly before the cataclysmic Great Extinction.

The Elgin reptiles represent the only known example of this type of fossil in Western Europe.

The researchers hope that the growing use of micro-CT scanning as a tool to examine fossils in detail, combined with the trend toward open data sharing, will offer opportunities to expand the body of knowledge in the field.

“The Elgin Marvel is a fascinating fossil of an ancient mammal relative that is among the best-preserved of the world-renowned Elgin Reptiles,” says Hady George, former MSc student in palaeontology and geobiology, School of GeoSciences, now University of Bristol.

“Most of these famous fossils were found more than a century ago, and only now are new technologies allowing us to reveal them in detail and gain valuable insights into their skull and brain anatomy as well as their genealogy,”

“As hard as it is to imagine, about 250 million years ago Scotland was a desert covered with sand dunes, and primitive cousins ​​of mammals like Gordonia dominated that world. By studying them, we can learn about some of the earliest stages.” of our own evolution,” says Professor Steve Brusatte, Professor of Paleontology and Evolution, School of GeoSciences.