250 million year old fossil seen again with modern technology

For the first time, details of an ancient cousin of modern mammals are revealed. Hi-tech scanning of an ancient fossil, captured in sandstone about 252 to 254 million years ago, is giving experts valuable insight into the animal’s anatomy and evolution.

The study, published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Societywas conducted in collaboration with the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, the University of Birmingham and the Hunterian Museum.

The pig-like animal with tusks, which belonged to a species called Gordonia traquairi, lived in a time before the dinosaurs, when the Earth consisted of a single landmass known as Pangea.

It comes from an extinct group of species known as dicynodonts, which are characterized by their stocky bodies, beaks and tusks.

These creatures lived a relatively short time before the worst mass extinction in history, the Great Dying, which occurred about 252 million years ago and wiped out much of life on Earth.

The specimen, known as the Elgin Marvel, is among the best preserved of a series of fossils collected near Elgin in northeastern Scotland. These are collectively called the Elgin reptiles, even though some, such as Gordonia, are more closely related to mammals.

A team of experts led by the University of Edinburgh carried out micro-CT scans – high-resolution, 3D imaging – of a cavity formed by the animal in a sandstone rock, before its bones broke off.

Their scans provide a three-dimensional view of the skull’s anatomy, including details of the brain.

These insights can help understand the animal’s likely behavior and the biology underlying it, and provide clues about the evolution of this and other species.

The animal shares many physical features with similar fossils found in China, suggesting that dicynodonts spread across the globe shortly before the catastrophic Great Dying.

The Elgin reptiles provide the only known example of this type of fossil in Western Europe.

Researchers hope that the increasing use of micro-CT scanning as a tool to examine fossils in detail, combined with a trend toward open data sharing, will provide opportunities to expand knowledge in the field.

“The Elgin Marvel is a fascinating fossil of an ancient mammal relative that is among the best preserved of the world-famous Elgin reptiles,” says Hady George, a former MA student in palaeontology and geobiology research at the School of GeoSciences, currently at the University of Bristol.

“These famous fossils were largely found more than a century ago, and it is only now that new technologies are allowing us to finally reveal them in detail, and gain valuable insights into their skull and brain anatomy, as well as their genealogy,”

‘As hard as it is to imagine, Scotland was a desert covered in sand dunes about 250 million years ago, and primitive cousins ​​of mammals like Gordonia held sway in this world. By studying them we can learn about some of the earliest stages. of our own evolution,” says Professor Steve Brusatte, professor of paleontology and evolution, School of GeoSciences.