New Zealand's First Land Mammal Discovered

Bob Beale writes to clue us to big news from New Zealand. The country has long been thought to have been devoid of land mammals until recent times. No mammal fossils had ever been found there; but now one has. From the article: "Small but remarkable fossils found in New Zealand will prompt a major rewrite of prehistory textbooks, showing for the first time that the so-called 'land of birds' was once home to mammals as well. The tiny fossilized bones — part of a jaw and hip — belonged to a unique, mouse-sized land animal unlike any other mammal known... The fact that even one land mammal had lived there, at least 16 million years ago, has put paid to the theory that New Zealand's rich bird fauna had evolved there because they had no competition from land mammals."

Comments

Cue Evolution flame wars in 3..2..1

[spineboy]

Please people -let's try to stay on track, and not degenerate into evolution/religion flame wars. Slashdot is about nerd news - science, computers, etc. Evolution falls into that, and should be discussed here with the concept of that it is an accepted scientific process. If you wish to dispute that, please go to another website, where evolution is not accepted.

Now on topic, those little mouse sized mammals really were the shock troops of mammalian invasion forces - they seemed to be pretty successful. I wonder how much different the climate was back then when they were around.

Re:Interesting. (Obligatory eyebrow raise.)

[Gothmolly]

You're from NZ, so it sort of explains all the citations of scientific fact. But the other fact remains that nobody else outside of NZ gives a flying rat's crap about your silly volcanos, cubic kilometers of debris, or "South of the South Island". You're NZ. We'll let YOU know when you're relevant.