GS PAPERIII: Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life.

Context: Beast of five teeth: Chilean scientists unearth skunk that walked among dinosaurs

• The animal is thought to have lived between 72 and 74 million years ago during the Upper Cretaceous period.
• A fossil of a skunk-like mammal that lived during the age of dinosaurs has been discovered in Chilean Patagonia
• Christened Orretherium tzen, meaning ‘Beast of Five Teeth’ in an amalgam of Greek and a local indigenous language.
• The finds are critical to completing the evolutionary puzzle of the Gondwanatheria, a group of long-extinct early mammals that co-existed with dinosaurs.
• The scientists think Orretherium tzen cohabited with Magallanodon baikashkenke, which was thought to have been an evolutionary step between a platypus or marsupial, and dinosaurs such as the long-necked titanosaur.

https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/beast-of-five-teeth-chilean-scientists-unearth-skunk-that-walked-among-dinosaurs/article34287836.ece?homepage=true

Download PDF