Ancient fossil from Madagascar sheds light on diversity of enigmatic Mesozoic mammals

A new detailed analysis on the ancient fossil from Madagascar has provided a deeper insight into the diversity of enigmatic Mesozoic mammals.

Vintana sertich had previously been described in a preliminary note in November 2014, but a new memoir delves far deeper into the morphology and paleoecology of this amazing fossil animal.

Vintana was a member of an extinct and, until now, very poorly known group of mammals, the gondwanatherians, which are named based on their geographic distribution on the southern continents, also known as Gondwana. Previously known fossils of gondwanatherians had consisted only of isolated teeth and a few fragmentary lower jaw specimens.

The new specimen was a nearly complete and only slightly distorted cranium, which was painstakingly removed from a large block of sediment and later micro-CT scanned to provide fine details of both the external and internal anatomy of the animal.

These scans also allowed the investigators to digitally separate, or segment, individual cranial bones and allowed them to virtually dissect the specimen without actually destroying it. These hi-res scans also allowed the authors to include with the memoir, as supplementary material, 3D-interactive PDFs and high-resolution images.

The cranium displays some bizarre features, like enlarged flanges for attachment of chewing muscles, a strangely tilted braincase, and large eye sockets. Analysis of these features and others reveals that Vintana was a badger-sized, herbivorous animal that was agile and active, with keen senses of smell, vision, and hearing.

The research is published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.