Exciting New Find: A Jurassic Mammal

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Scientists in Patagonia found a fossil of a mammal that they say lived during the Jurassic Period and could be 170 million years old.

If this date is correct, then it means that mammals developed independently in the Southern Hemisphere. This is big news because nearly all modern mammals are thought to be descendants of mammals who lived in the Northern Hemisphere.

The fossil belonged to an egg-laying mammal similar to a platypus. Some of these mammals are still found today in Australia.

The fossil was found in Chubut, Patagonia, about 950 miles south of Buenos Aires, Argentina.