A BIZARRE mammal-like reptile with the body of a pig, the beak of a turtle and tusks of a walrus survived in a remote corner of ancient Gondwana for more than 100 million years after its supposed extinction, claim two Australian palaeontologists.
Tony Thulborn and Susan Turner of Monash University in Melbourne took a fresh look at six fragments of fossilised skull uncovered in north-central Queensland in 1914. They conclude that the 105-million-year-old bone belongs to a dicynodont – a creature believed to have gone extinct about 220 million years ago. If true, this means dicynodonts lived well into the…
