Scientists unearthed two fossils belonging to “scratch-diggers” that lived in the northeastern part of China sometime between 145 million and 100 million years ago (probably closer to around 120 million years ago). These are the first of the ancient burrowing mammal-like animals found from that time period – specifically the Jehol Biota which includes living creatures that lived during the Early Cretaceous Period in northeast China.
These two new species were distant relatives but they each developed their own unique digging skills. One of the fossils belonged to a foot-long mammal-like reptile called a Tritylodontidae and this new species has been named
Fossiomanus sinensis. The second fossil was a 7-inch-long type of Eutriconodontan called
Chinese scientists discover neopterygian fish fossil 244 mln-year ago
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Scientists discover two new species of ancient, burrowing mammal ancestors
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Credit: Jingsong Shi
In 2001, the famous herpetologist Joseph B. Slowinski died from snakebite by an immature black-and-white banded krait, while leading an expedition team in northern Myanmar. The very krait that caused his death is now confirmed to belong to the same species identified as a new to science venomous snake, following an examination of samples collected between 2016 and 2019 from Yingjiang County, Yunnan Province, China.
The new krait species, found in Southwestern China and Northern Myanmar, is described by Dr Zening Chen of Guangxi Normal University, PhD candidate Shengchao Shi, Dr Li Ding from the Chengdu Institute of Biology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dr Gernot Vogel of the Society for Southeast Asian Herpetology in Germany and Dr Jingsong Shi of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology at Chinese Academy of Sciences. Their study is published in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal
New deadly snake from Asia named after character from Chinese myth Legend of White Snake
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