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In a paper published this week in the journal Current Biology, paleontologists described functionally important features of the skeleton of the extinct porcupine Erethizon poyeri.
The fossil, which was found in a limestone quarry, is the oldest, nearly complete porcupine skeleton documented from North America.
There's a longstanding debate simmering among biologists who study porcupines. There are 16 porcupine species in Central and South America, but only one in the United States and Canada. DNA evidence suggests North America's sole porcupine belongs to a group that originated 10 million years ago, but fossils seem to tell a different story. Some paleontologists think they may have evolved just 2.5 million years ago, at the beginning of the ice ages.
An exceptionally rare fossilized porcupine skeleton discovered in Florida has allowed researchers to trace the evolutionary history for one of North America's rarest mammals.
"Graveyard of the Giant Beasts" on Secrets of the DeadWednesday, February 7 at 10:00 pm Sixty-five million years ago, a giant meteor hit the earth causing a global catastrophe that des