Image courtesy of Crystal Shin, fair use doctrine
Joel Kontinen
Some 250 millions of years , a Seussian-looking beast with clawed digits, a turtle-like beak and
two tusks may have survived Antarctica's chilly winters not by fruitlessly
foraging for food, but by curling up into a sleep-like state, meaning that
according to evolutionists, it may be the oldest animal on record to hibernate,
a new study finds.
Analysis of
this Triassic vertebrate's ever-growing tusks revealed that it may
have spent part of the year hibernating, a strategy that is still used by
modern animals to tough out long winters. Like hibernators alive today, these
ancient animals, who belong to the extinct genus Lystrosaurus, slowed down their metabolism and
underwent periods of minimal activity when conditions got rough.
"The closest
analogue we can find to the 'stress marks' that we observed in Antarctic Lystrosaurus tusks are stress marks in teeth associated with
hibernation in certain modern animals," Megan Whitney the lead
author of the study, said in the statement
Lystrosaurus, could grow up to 2.4 meters or 8 feet long. The genus
managed to survive the planet's largest mass extinction, which happened at the
end of the Permian period about 252 million years ago and
killed 70% of land vertebrates. Lystrosaurus fossils have
been found in India, China, Russia, Africa and Antarctica, according to the
statement
So, this animal was
older that the dinosaurs and managed to solve the Permian extinction
Source
Saplakoglu, Yasemin, 2020. Seussian
beast survived the Triassic by taking lots of naps. Live Science 28 August
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