Ancient sabre-toothed carnivores discovered
Scientists have discovered the fossils of what they say a sabre-toothed beast that munched on leaves and once prowled South America some 260 million years ago. The newfound creature, which was about the size of a large and looked more like a tortoise than a feared predator, is named Tiarajudens eccentricus.
Despite it’s vegetarian tendencies, the dagger teeth will have helped the animal deal with predators and enemies, the researchers said.
Juan Carlos Cisneros, a vertebrate palaeontologist at the Federal University of Piauí in Teresina, Brazil, said finding of the fossil was a bizarre experience.
“If you asked me how surprised I was about finding this fossil, I can tell you that finding a fossil so bizarre as Tiarajudens eccentricus, a fossil that looks like if it has been made from parts of different animals, is like finding a unicorn,” Carlos told LiveScience. “You see it, but you don’t believe it.”
In addition to the crayon-size sabre canines, the entire roof of the its mouth was covered with teeth, the researchers said. This animal was a kind of anomodont, the most abundant four-legged creatures of the Permian, the 50-million-year-long period right before the age of dinosaurs.
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