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A fossil find in New Mexico’s San Juan Basin has led to the discovery of a previously unknown species, Kimbetopsalis Simmonsae. Teeth found at the site had cusps arranged in rows resembling kernels on an ear of corn or the teeth of a meat-tenderizing mallet. They were characteristic of multituberculate mammals, a group of rodent-like creatures that lived with dinosaurs for more than 100 million years.
They survived the dinosaur extinction only to die out about 40 million years ago. “Multituberculate” refers to the multiple rows of cusps found on the animals’ teeth. People have been hunting fossils in the San Juan Basin since at least the 1880s. This was the first new multituberculate mammal to be found there in more than 100 years.Image credit: Thomas E. Williamson, Curator of Paleontology, New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science
