Zhangheotherium
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| iZhangheotherium |
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Extinct (fossil)
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Zhangheotherium was discovered in Liaoning Province, China, in 1997. Zhangheotherium is a species of symmetrodont, an extinct order of mammal previously known from only its tall pointed crowned teeth. Zhangheotherium is the first symmetrodont known from a complete skeleton, which in this case dates between 145-125 million years ago in the Cretaceous. Symmetrodonts and other archaic mammals such as multituberculates and monotremes are still being debated on their taxonomical relationships. Zhangheotherium has many primitive characteristics. Among them is a venomous spur at the foot, seen today in the modern platypus. In addition, it walked with a reptilian sprawl, not at all like our known mammals but instead like many Mesozoic mammals, like Jeholodens and Repenomamus. Mammals must have been common in Liaoning Province, for in 1996 the first fossil of the feathered dinosaur Sinosauropteryx was excavated with a fossil mammalian jaw preserved in its stomach region.
