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Extinct ‘Hobbit’ creature Beorn Found to be Real

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Published on: August 18, 2021,

According to a research published in Journal of Systematic Paleontology three new species of ancient creatures has been discovered immediately after mass extinction of dinosaurs.  They were prehistoric mammals and roamed North America. After these discoveries it was suggested mammals diversified more rapidly than previously thought. The names of these creatures are Miniconus jeanninae, Conacodon hettingeri, and Beornus honey. Their size range from modern house cat to rat sized mammals. There was 420 mammalian fossils uncovered at Wyoming dig  site.

 

Each have unique dental features. Beornus honeyi has been named in homage to Hobbit character Beorn due to puffy cheek teeth. As per Tolkein’s novel Bourn is sometimes black bear and sometimes strong black haired man. He can thus change shape and Bilbo Baggins and company cross paths Beorn. As per research Bourn is no bigger then house cat. This new group belong to mammals called archaic ungulates who are primitive ancestors of today’s hoofed mammals like horses, elephants, cows. These three species are distinguished by their teeth. They may have been omnivorous as per appearance of their teeth. The mass extinction of dinosaurs happened 66 million years ago and several types of mammals appeared immediately after wards.

 

Madelaine Atteberry from the University of Colorado Geological Sciences Department in the USA explains, “After the dinosaurs were extinct reach to different food and environment enabled mammals to flourish causing diversified tooth anatomy and larger body size.”  Atteberry and co-author Jaelyn Eberle a curator in Museum of Natural History studied teeth and jaw bone fossil ‘condylarth’ and used phylogenetic technique to understand how the species are related to each other. The evidence supports discovery of three new species to science.

 

About the size of a marmot or house cat Beornus honeyi was the largest. Conacodon hettingeri is similar to other species of Conacodon. Paleocene ‘condylarths’, is distinguished by a tiny cusp on its molars called a parastylid. “Previous studies suggest after the dinosaurs were extinguished there was low mammal species across North America. But after the discovery of three new species suggest there was rapid diversification following the extinction’’ says Atteberry. The full study of mammalian diversity has not been captured yet.

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