From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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.
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