According to a new study, an ancient relative of modern otters, may have been the dominant predator the size of a wolf.
According to approximate calculations of the ancient otter weighed about 50 kilograms and had a surprisingly powerful jaws. The animal lived 6 million years ago in China.
Ancient otter has a name Siamogale melilutra and she had incredibly strong jaws, in an attempt to understand the power of the animal scientists from an international team created a computer model based on the computed tomography scan of the skull, the scan was given to a scientist is not easy, as they had to put some of the bones of tiny pieces. Once the model was built, scientists began to compare the work of the jaws of an ancient predator and a modern otter.
Initially, scientists believed that prehistoric otter had the same jaw as modern, but at the expense of large size could create more pressure. The results showed that the jaws of the otters have evolved a little differently, the larger otter had a more flexible jaw, small more hard. Due to its flexibility, the jaw could afford to crack even large mollusks.
The team believes that the ratio of the size of the jaws and could do Siamogale melilutra the dominant predator in the territory of China at that time.
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