Brazilian paleontologists said on January 18 they have found the fossil of a carnivorous predator that lived more than 260 million years ago and is the oldest unearthed in South America.
"This predator lived nearly 40 million years before the dinosaur and is a precursor to mammifers," said Juan Carlos Cisneros, of the Federal University of the north-eastern state of Piaui. The fossil, a complete 35-cm (14-inch) skull found in 2008 in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, was restored and analysed by South African and Turkish experts who validated the discovery and published it in the prestigious US review, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
It is exhibited at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre.
"We are talking about the oldest fossil ever found in South America of a species of the last period of the Paleolithic era - before the separation of the continents, with characteristics of species only known in South Africa and Russia," Cisneros said. The remains found are those of a species of dinocephalus, a remote relative of mammifers.
The discovery made it possible to reconstruct the body of the predator believed to have been three meters (nine feet) long and to have weighed 300 kilograms (660 pounds). It had four big hook-shaped canine teeth (two upper and two lowers) to catch its prey as well as other saw-shaped teeth, Cisneros said.