248 million-year-old platypus fossils were found in Yuan'an

Pictured: Fossil photo and sketch of Carlo Dong's fan paddle dragon. (Photo courtesy of Wuhan Geological Survey Center of China Geological Survey)

Hubei Daily News (reporter Wu Baohu, correspondent Huang Haitao, Liu Zhongyi) On February 18, the Ministry of Natural Resources of the People's Republic of China released the news that a research team led by Professor Cheng Long of the Wuhan Geological Survey Center of the China Geological Survey, in the in-depth study of the Nanzhang-Yuan'an fauna in Hubei Province, found for the first time a marine reptile fossil with a similar predation method to the platypus that exists today. This is an important argument for the evolution of ancient reptiles, and the relevant research results have been published in the sub-journal nature. This discovery is of great significance for the study of the formation process of modern marine ecosystems.

According to reports, there are 2 ancient biological fossils found this time, all of which lived in the Early Triassic Ofot's Fan Oaredron, which is about 248 million years away from now. It has been studied that the Largosans had small eyes, poor vision, and a very similar mouth to platypus. The creature, not through its eyes, but through its body's electrical signals and its tactilely sensitive duck's beak, searches for prey in a dim environment, known in academia as a "blind induction" method of predation. The discovery of fossils of The Cullodonians advanced the existence of "blindly sensing" predatory animals to the early Triassic, or 248 million years ago.

At the end of the Permian period, about 250 million years ago, the largest extinction event in the history of life occurred on Earth. Conventional wisdom holds that marine ecosystems were not fully restored until the Middle Triassic (about 242 million years ago). The discovery of the Fossil of Carlo Dong's Pulverosaurus provides new evidence that the full recovery of marine ecosystems after the mass extinction of the late Permian period was advanced to 248 million years ago, and its recovery time was 6 million years earlier.

The Nanzhang-Yuan'an fauna is one of the earliest marine reptile communities in the world. In recent years, a variety of marine reptile fossils such as Hubei crocodile, ichthyosaur and archaeoptera have been found in the area, becoming a precious specimen for humans to understand the multiplying of prehistoric reptiles in the ocean.