A team of researchers from the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (Conicet) discovered a group of fossil remains of mammals that lived 38 million years ago in the vicinity of the Rio Negro town of Ingeniero Jacobacci, the provincial government reported.
The official information details that “the finds include a wide variety of extinct mammals” among which stands out a mandible of “Plesiofelis”a large marsupial close to weasels and kangaroos, with a carnivorous habit and size comparable to a wolf.
Also found “a astraponotus skulla herbivorous mammal weighing about half a ton, similar to a tapir, but with large tusks like a wild boar and molars similar to those of a rhinoceros”.
In addition, “abundant remains of small armadillos and numerous extinct herbivorous mammals that were endemic to South America were found.”
The study of the rocks in which the fossils were found allowed us to infer that those mammals lived in a sub-humid seasonal environmentvery different from the current Patagonian steppe, and correspond to a period of great global environmental change, in which forests and jungles gradually gave way to grasslands.
The remains were found in geological strata formed by the accumulation of volcanic ash emitted by the intense activity of nearby ancient volcanoes, approximately 38 million years ago.
Finally, the Rio Negro government clarified that the work is being carried out by a team made up of researchers, paleontologists and geologists from Buenos Aires, Mendoza and La Plata, “providing continuity to the explorations of the archaeologist and paleontologist Radolfo Casamiquela but with methodologies typical of the 19th century.”
