Fossilized teeth from three new species of rodent, found in Peru, show the animals were most closely related to African rodents from the suborder Caviomorpha, the group that includes guinea pigs, chinchillas, and New World porcupines. This supports the theory that rodents landed in the north and spread south instead of spreading north as deduced from the fossil record 20 years ago and pushes back the date of the first South American rodents. Previously, the oldest fossils from this group were only from between 30 and 32 million years old.
Posted by Astrojenny
0 comments:
Post a Comment