Description

Late Jurassic (Tithonian)

Morrison Formation

Bone Cabin Quarry, Albany County, Wyoming, USA

Ultra-rare 1mm mammal tooth.

Mammal,

The mammals of the Jurassic would have looked like rodents to us but they lived at least 85 million years before the earliest true rodents appeared.  These animals belong to groups not far removed from the earliest mammals of the Late Triassic – animals quite alien relative to anything living today – and are less familiar even to researchers who specialize in Late Cretaceous groups.  Nearly all that we know of these ancient forms is based on teeth like this one.