This Mammal That Walked With The Dinosaurs Was an Insane Beast

Experts call it a “crazy beast,” because its evolutionary attributes defy logic.

Transcript

00:00This is the skeleton of a giant rat that experts believe walked alongside the dinosaurs 66 million

00:08years ago, and it's the most complete mammal skeleton from the period before dinos went

00:13extinct ever found in the southern hemisphere. They say it's a missing link, and they're calling

00:17it a delatherium, or crazy beast translated from Greek, and it's been named that because it's sort

00:22of baffling scientists. Denver Museum of Nature and Sciences Dr. David Krause, who co-led the

00:27paper, said, quote, knowing what we know about the skeletal anatomy of all living and extinct

00:32mammals, it is difficult to imagine how it could have evolved. It bends and even breaks a lot of

00:36rules. The creature was around three feet long and likely weighed around seven pounds, with its front

00:41end evolution contradicting the back end, according to Krause, and its teeth suggested eight plants,

00:45but researchers say the rear ones are completely unique to this animal, and researchers say all

00:50of its anatomical peculiarities would likely be due to evolving on the island of Madagascar,

00:54which had become completely isolated 86 million years ago. Experts say a delatherium was wiped out

01:00by the same asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.