Platypus has something similar in South America

1991/12/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Zoologia

There have been mammals laying eggs in South America. The yew of a “platypus” found in Argentinian Patagonia has been the imprint of the first monotrema discovered outside Australia and New Guinea. This discovery reinforces the theory that Australia and South America enjoyed a similar fauna.

The yew found by paleontologists 850 km southwest of Buenos Aires was the upper and right side of the mouth. The discovery was presented in Sydney within the symposium entitled “Mammals laying eggs”.

Rosendo Pascual, from the University of La Plata, says that the fossil is 62 million years old. Today we will only find two living monotremes. On the one hand, there is the so-called Australian platipus and on the other hand, New Guinea and Australia. The females of these two species lay eggs. Once the chicks come out of the egg, the milk is extracted from some holes that the mother has to absorb it.

In the case of Platipus only young people have teeth. However, it can be shown that the teeth that appear in found fossils are the oldest and youngest.

Tom Rich, patron of fossil vertebrates at the Victoria Museum in Melbourne, is convinced that what was discovered in South America is a cymbal, since the teeth of monotremes have very special characteristics. Drawing many conclusions from a tooth can be too exaggerated, but the South American dish in Rich’s view may be familiar with the mysterious “Obdurón”, which lived in Australia 20 million years ago.

However, monotremes remain a mysterious group, so far only fossils of equids and platicles have been found.