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The discovery of an unusual fossilized skull in eastern Utah is shedding new light on Earth’s history. The 130 million-year-old skull belonged to a previously unknown “reptile-like mammal.” Experts have described the new species, named “Cifelliodon wahkarmoosuch,” in honor of paleontologist Richard Cifelli, in the journal Nature. “Based on the unlikely discovery of this near-complete fossil cranium, we now recognize a new, cosmopolitan group of early mammal relatives,” said Adam Huttenlocker, lead author of the study and assistant professor of clinical integrative anatomical sciences at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, in a statement. ..." Cifelliodon belongs to an...

__________________________________________________________________ A 130-million-year-old skull of a tiny mammal found amid a set of dinosaur bones in Utah more than a decade ago could reshape the way scientists think about the breakup of Earth’s ancient super-continent, Pangea, and about the way mammals spread across the world. The skull, found nearly complete, represents a new species, dubbed Cifelliodon wahkarmoosuch. It was found in an exposed rock formation on Bureau of Land Management land northeast of Arches National Park and has some unlikely relatives — a subgroup of creatures known as Hanodontidae, which had previously only been found in regions of North Africa....