[Gambar] Watak Tupai Filem ICE AGE Memang Wujud?

Watak tupai dalam Ice Age sebenarnya memang wujud

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Fossils of a tiny and previously unknown saber-toothed, squirrel-like creature have been discovered in Argentina, providing new clues to how small mammals lived among dinosaurs more than 93 million years ago, scientists said Thursday.

Cronopio dentiacutus had extremely long teeth, a narrow snout and large eye sockets, meaning it probably moved around at night to be able to survive among huge carnivorous beasts in the late Cretaceous period, according to the team that discovered the fossil in the Patagonian province of Rio Negro. The fossil was found in a bed of sediment that also has produced a variety of much larger dinosaur bones.

A fossil as discovered at the Riversleigh World Heritage site in north-west Queensland. It's a creature that's been nick-named 'the Scrat' and looks a bit like a sabre-toothed bandicoot. (A Meyer - University of New South Wales)

The two partial skulls and jaws bridge a 60- million-year gap in the mammalian fossil record, said Sebastian Apesteguia, Leandro Gaetano and Guillermo Rougier, who described their find in Thursday's edition of the journal Nature.

Lakaran pelukis tupai tersebut mengikut struktur fosil yang di temui

The little creature was probably less than 6 inches long and shared similar characteristics with the saber-toothed squirrel in the "Ice Age" movies. But Cronopio probably ate insects, not the nuts that drive the animated character Scrat so crazy, and was a dryolestoid, an extinct group more like today's marsupials than squirrels, the scientists said.