🦣 MammalsCretaceousLesser known
Repenomamus
Repenomamus robustus
Repenomamus overturns the image that all mammals in the age of the dinosaurs were small and insignificant.
Image: Morosaurus millenii · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
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Characteristics
- Scientific name
- Repenomamus robustus
- Period
- Early Cretaceous (Aptian)
- Lived
- 125–123 Ma (125 million years ago)
- Diet
- Carnivore
- Habitat
- Forest
- Length (estimate)
- 0.7 m
- Mass (estimate)
- 6 kg
- Discovered/described
- 2000 · Li Jinling and colleagues (description)
Description
Repenomamus was a sturdy, badger-like mammal – large for a mammal of the dinosaur age. The stomach of one specimen contains the bones of a young Psittacosaurus: proof that some mammals of the time ate small dinosaurs. Whether it hunted them or scavenged is uncertain.
Habitat
Forests around lakes in a volcanic landscape in north-eastern China.
Fossil sites
Lujiatun, Liaoning
Yixian Formation
Cultural profile: China →
Contemporaries in the database
Sources: Repenomamus