An international team of researchers, led by our curator Rafael Matamales from the MUCBO | Balearic Museum of Natural Sciences, has published the discovery of an extraordinary fossil in Banyalbufar (Mallorca) in Nature Communications: a therapsid with impressive “saber teeth.”
The study of this Mallorcan “saber-toothed” fossil, which predates the first dinosaurs, has allowed scientists to determine that it was an animal superficially resembling a medium-sized dog, although it had naked skin and reproduced by laying eggs, like current reptiles and birds. Its large, disproportionate teeth show that it was the largest predator in the area’s ecosystem.
Scientists believe that one of the potential prey for this super predator must have been Tramontanasaurus, another fossil animal discovered and described by the same researchers in 2023. Its remains were found alongside those of the “saber-tooth,” also in Banyalbufar. Regarding the “saber-tooth,” Rafael Matamales, curator of MUCBO | Balearic Museum of Natural Sciences and the first author of the article, explains that “although we haven’t located the full skeleton, only parts of the head, spine, and almost complete back leg, these fossilized bones have been more than enough to confirm that the Banyalbufar ‘saber-tooth’ is the oldest mammalian ancestor known on the planet.”
The site where the Tramontanasaurus and “saber-tooth” fossils were found corresponds to an ancient watering hole where animals would gather to drink during drier seasons. “270 million years ago, Mallorca was not an island, but part of the supercontinent Pangea. It was located in the equatorial zone and had an arid, dry climate,” explain Josep Fortuny and Àngel Galobart, researchers from the Miquel Crusafont Catalan Institute of Paleontology, who are also part of the team that described the fossil.
This international study also involved researchers from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences (USA), Princeton University (USA), the Field Museum of Chicago (USA), the Stuttgart Natural History Museum (Germany), the Miquel Crusafont Catalan Institute of Paleontology (Catalonia), and the Isona-Conca Dellà Museum (Catalonia). The research was funded through various grants from the Consell de Mallorca.
The fossils of the Mallorcan “saber-tooth,” along with a life-size reconstruction of the animal in its living form, can be seen in a new temporary exhibition that opened at the MUCBO (Sóller) on November 14 and will remain open until April.
