The team had just shaken up platypus evolution. It was bigger than any platypus known before. To estimate the size of the animal the tooth came from, Pian and colleagues compared the tooth with other platypus teeth and made a rough extrapolation of the size of the new species. But it also had bumps and ridges never before seen in the group. When she showed it to study co-author Mike Archer, he immediately agreed it was new.įor instance, the tooth clearly had the unique shape known to belong only to platypus teeth. After closer study, "I said, 'Wait a second, not only is it quite big, it's quite different as well,'" Pian remembers. One tooth struck her as odd: It was bigger than any known platypus tooth. student at Columbia University in New York City, pulled them out in 2012 while studying at Australia's University of New South Wales. The limestone fossils were stowed in a cupboard and forgotten until study leader Rebecca Pian, a Ph.D. ![]() Scientists fleshed out the animal based on a single tooth found several years ago in limestone collected from the fossil-rich Riversleigh World Heritage Area of northwest Queensland (map). ![]() That's a much bigger critter than a modern-day platypus, which at 15 inches (38 centimeters) long is about the size of a small domestic cat. ![]() What's cooler than a venomous, duck-billed mammal that lays eggs? A giant one-and that's just what researchers have found.Ī newly discovered species of three-foot-long (one-meter-long) platypus, dubbed Obdurodon tharalkooschild, swam through freshwater pools in Australian forests about 5 to 15 million years ago, according to a new study.
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