Image courtesy of Chuang Zhao, Ruoshuang Li
Joel Kontinen
What did the early mammals look like, according to
evolution?
Some researchers say that the fossils say that
they do like their ancestors of all today’s species.
But the
fossils have many problems. Some had said that the ancestor of all whales
lived on land and then moved to waters.
“While many dinosaurs and pterosaurs flaunted flamboyant feathers, early mammals were a
dull lot. A study of the fossilised fur of six mammals that lived during the
Jurassic and Cretaceous periods has found they all had greyish-brown fur.
“They were dinosaur food,” says Matthew Shawkey at Ghent University
in Belgium. “You didn’t want
to be conspicuous.”
A study of the fossilised fur of six mammals from the
Jurassic and Cretaceous periods has found they were all greyish-brown in
colour, which would have helped them hide from dinosaurs.
Source:
Michael Le Page 2025 Fossils reveal what the fur of early mammals looked like | New Scientist 13 March
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