An artist’s impression of the gliding mammal, swooping in for lunch (Image: Chuang Zhao and Lida Xing)
Time for some mammalian bragging. It appears, following the discovery of a unique fossil in Inner Mongolia, China, that mammals might have taken to the air before birds.
The fossil contains the remains of a small, squirrel-like mammal that was able to glide with the help of a fur-covered membrane like those of modern-day flying squirrels (pictured). At 125 million years old, the fossil is 70 million years older than the most ancient existing fossil of a flying mammal, and roughly the same…
