lmage courtesy of Fernando Novas.
Joel Kontinen
According to
evolution, round 70 million years ago, a small, furry, platypus-like creature
shuffled along the banks of an ancient lake. This would not have been a
remarkable occurrence, except for one thing: The lake was in present-day
Argentina, not Australia.
The discovery of this animal, dubbed Patagorhynchus pascuali, is the oldest fossil of the egg-laying mammal group known as monotremes ever discovered in South America.
So how did this animal find itself in Australia?
According to evolution, Australia, South America and Antarctica (as well as parts of Africa and Asia) were together in a supercontinent called Gondwana.
Thompson, Joanna, 2023. Ancient platypus-like fossil could rewrite the history of egg-laying mammals, Live Science 10 March.
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