Description
Morganucodon Mammal Tooth
- Morganucodon watsoni
- Triassic Age
- Pant Quarry, Neaer Bridgend
- South Glamorgan
- South Wales, United Kingdom
- This TINY 1.5mm +/- Specimen from a TINY Mammal will come in a 1.25″ Gem Jar
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Morganucodon (“Glamorgan tooth”) is an early mammaliaform genus that lived during the late Triassic period. It first appeared about 205 million years ago. Unlike many other early mammals, Morganucodon is well represented by abundant and well preserved, though in the vast majority of cases disarticulated, material. Most of this comes from Glamorgan in Wales (Morganucodon watsoni), but fossils have also been found in Yunnan Province in China (Morganucodon oehleri) and various parts of Europe and North America.
It was a small, plantigrade animal. The tail was moderately long. According to Kemp (2005), “the skull was 2–3 cm in length and a presacral body length of about 10 cm [4 inches]. In general appearance, it would have looked like a shrew or mouse”.
They are the oldest and longest-lived group of mammals. They died out after the Cretaceous, perhaps out-competed by true rodents. While superficially shrew-like, they are believed to be the only mammal group with no close living descendents.
