In human evolution, how did humans get their ears and teeth in the form they have today? Two new studies of Jurassic-era fossils by researchers in China, America and Australia provide new but deep information. This provided important information about how mammals like humans evolved. It was also found out how humans got the ears and teeth that they have today.
Both studies yielded a total of four fossils, dating back more than 164 million years. They are all fossils of mammals, a group that includes mammals and their closest extinct relatives. Three of the four found were schotheriids, small, rat-sized creatures that died out along with the dinosaurs.
Looking at the teeth and ears on these schuotherids, experts are puzzled as to how humans got them from the time of dinosaurs to the modern era, where mammals predominate. The research by palaeontologist Patricia Vickers-Rich of Monash University in Australia provides important information about which little was known until recent discoveries in China.
Humans got their teeth from animals of the dinosaur era. (Photo: April Neander University of Chicago)
Schuotherids have puzzled paleontologists since the 1980s. The shape of their individual teeth does not match that of equivalent mammals today. When it comes to fossil ears, researchers identified key features in the middle ear that give us mammals the ability to hear the sharpest on Earth.
In the second study, an older, more reptile-like mammal fossil was compared with a newly discovered schuotherid species. This helps explain the evolutionary change from reptiles with one middle-ear bone to mammals, which have three ears. Jin Meng, a paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, says scientists have been trying to understand how the mammalian middle ear evolved since Darwin’s time.
Also read: If aliens attack, will the world be able to deal with them, how prepared are we? The expert answered
These new fossils shed light on an important missing link and serve to expand our understanding of the evolution of the mammalian middle ear. This type of remapping helps show how traits evolved over time, either independently or in concert.
,
Tags: Amazing news, Bizarre news, OMG News, Weird news
FIRST PUBLISHED: April 12, 2024, 17:55 IST
