Title:130-Million-Year-Old Fossil Skull From Utah Reveals New Species Of Mammal Relatives

A group of scientists has unearthed a nearly 130-million-year-old fossilized skull of a reptile-like mammal species that continued to evolve as it migrated across several continents.

一群科学家挖掘出一块近1.3亿年前的爬行动类哺乳类动物物种的化石头骨。

The age of the fossilized skull hinted that the new species could be the link that completed the transition of reptiles to the earliest mammal relatives.

化石颅骨的年龄暗示新物种可能是完成爬行动物向早期哺乳动物亲属过渡的纽带。

The discovery revealed that species of ancient reptile-like mammals were already ecologically diverse aside from being anatomically similar. They could already be classified into different groups the way modern mammals are classified today. The new species, as well as its contemporaneous that existed 66 to 145 million years ago, already belonged to different niches of insectivores, herbivores, carnivores, swimmers, and gliders.

这项发现表明，除了解剖学上的类似外，古代爬行动类哺乳动物的种类在生态上已经具有多样性，而且可以按现代哺乳动物的分类方式分为不同组。这些新物种，以及66至1.45亿年前存在的当时物种，已经属于不同类型的昆虫、食草动物、食肉动物、游泳者和滑翔者。

Based on the unearthed skull, it could also be hypothesized that evolution of ancient mammals continued to happen while they migrate from Asia to Europe, into North America, and further to bigger Southern continents.

根据出土的颅骨，也可以假设古哺乳动物的进化继续发生，它们从亚洲迁移到欧洲，进入北美，并延伸到更大的南方大陆。

This pattern of migration also suggested that the separation of the ancient landmass Pangea continued to about 15 million years later than what was previously believed.

这种移徙模式还表明，古陆地帕纳伊的分离仍然比过去所相信的时间晚约1 500万年。

The skull was incidentally unearthed at a site north of Arches National Park in eastern Utah. The paleontologists initially brought a rock for a different study but surprisingly discovered the fossilized skull.

颅骨是偶然在犹他州东部的Arches国家公园以北的地方出土的，古生物学家最初为另一项研究带来一块岩石，但出乎意料地发现了化石头骨。

Adam Huttenlocker, the lead author of the study and assistant professor of clinical integrative anatomical sciences at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, named the new species Cifelliodon wahkarmoosuch.

南加州大学凯克医学院临床综合解剖科学的主要研究作者和助理教授Adam Huttenlocker命名了新物种Cifelodon wafalmoo。

Huttenlocker and colleagues from the Utah Geological Survey and University of Chicago grouped the Cifelliodon with the Haramiyida, an extinct branch of mammals that is closest to the present-day mammals.

Huttenlocker和来自犹他州地质调查局和芝加哥大学的同事将Cifemodon和Haramiyida归类，Haramiyida是哺乳动物的一个灭绝分支，最接近今天的哺乳动物。

"Here we report, to our knowledge, the first cranium of a large haramiyidan from the basal Cretaceous of North America," the scientists wrote in the study published in the journal Nature. Cifelliodon became the first of its particular subgroup found in North America, the Hahnodontidae.

正如我们所知，我们报告了北美玄武岩地区的第一座大阿米丹的头颅，科学家在《自然》杂志上发表的研究报告中写道。Cifilodon成为北美(Hahnododatiee)的特定分组中的第一个分组。

The skull showed that Cifelliodon had a small brain but large olfactory bulbs where its sense of smell, used for looking for food, was located. It also had small tiny eye sockets, which suggested that it had either poor eyesight or poor color vision.

颅骨显示，Ciafeliodon脑部很小，但发现有寻找食物的气味的大嗅灯，还有微小的眼睛袜子，说明视力不好或颜色差。

The scientists estimated that Cifelliodon weighed about 2.5 pounds, a body weight that was comparatively smaller than contemporary mammals but heaviest compared to ancient mammals during the Cretaceous period.

科学家们估计，Cifelodon体重大约为2.5磅，这一体重与当代哺乳动物相对较小，但与白垩纪的古代哺乳动物相比是最重的。

In comparison, an adult Cifelliodon was about the size of a small hare or a pika. The species' teeth resemble that of the fruit-eating bats.

与此相比，一个成年的Ciafelodon大约大小是一只小兔子或一只皮卡。这个物种的牙齿与吃水果的蝙蝠的牙齿相似。

"Cifelliodon is unique in that it is one of the only near-complete skulls of a mammal relative from the basal Cretaceous of North America and is the only fossil of early mammal relatives from this time interval in Utah," explained Huttenlocker.

Ciafidon是独一无二的，因为它是北美玄武岩白垩世哺乳动物亲属中唯一近乎完整的头骨之一，也是犹他州这一段时期以来哺乳动物早期亲属的唯一化石。Huttenlocker。

The Americas, Eurasia, Africa, Antarctica, Australia, and India used to be one huge continent called Pangea. The exact timing of Pangea's breakup into different continents continues to be under discussion.

美洲、欧亚、非洲、南极、澳大利亚和印度曾经是一个巨大的大陆名叫潘杰，目前仍在讨论将潘杰分成不同大陆的确切时间。

Huttenlocker and his team said the Cifelliodon closely resembled another species in Africa. This could suggest that the breakup of Pangea continued to happen 15 million years later than what was previously believed. This could particularly be true since northern and southern continents as well as Europe and North America were believed to have completely separated by the end of the Jurassic period or about 145 million years ago.

胡特克多和他的研究小组说，西菲里奥顿与非洲其他物种非常相似，这可能意味着潘杰伊的分裂持续时间比过去认为的时间晚1,500万年。这尤其可能是这样的 , 因为北方和南部各大洲以及欧洲和北美在侏罗纪时期结束前或大约 1.45亿年前被认为完全分离 。

Cifelliodon was unearthed from Utah deposits that were found to be about 125 to 130 million years. Huttenlocker and his team, therefore, concluded that there might be a "North Atlantic land bridge" that may have connected the Old and New Worlds into the Cretaceous.

Ciafidon是从犹他州的矿藏中挖掘出来的，这些矿藏大约有1.25到1.3亿年。因此，Huttenlocker和他的团队得出结论认为，北大西洋陆桥可能与老世界和新世界有联系。

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