Rukwa Rift Basin Project names new Cretaceous mammal from East African Rift System

Ohio University researchers announced a new species of mammal from the Age of Dinosaurs, representing the most complete mammal from the Cretaceous Period of continental Africa, and providing tantalizing insights into the past diversity of mammals on the planet.

Side view of the lower jaw of Galulatherium jenkinsi, the most complete mammal yet know from the Cretaceous
Period of the African continent, and named this week by researchers from Ohio University
[Credit: Patrick O'Connor et al. 2019]

The National Science Foundation-funded OHIO team, in collaboration with international colleagues, identified and named the new mammal in an article published in Acta Paleontologica Polonica. This nearly complete lower jaw represents the first named mammal species from the Late Cretaceous Period (100-66 million years ago) of the entire African continent. The squirrel-sized animal was probably related to a group of southern hemisphere mammals known as gondwanatherians, yet a bizarre combination of features (including evergrowing and enamel-less peg-like teeth) make it challenging to easily place within any group of mammals yet known, living or extinct.

The new mammal is named Galulatherium jenkinsi, a name based on the Galula rock unit (itself derived from one of the local villages in the field area) and therium, Latin for beast, with the species name "jenkinsi" honoring the late Farish Jenkins, distinguished professor of anatomy and organismic biology at Harvard University and a strong supporter of the Rukwa Rift Basin Project early in its development.

The type and only specimen of Galulatherium was discovered in 2002, when Rukwa Rift Basin Project researchers found a bone fragment eroding from Cretaceous-age red sandstones in the Rukwa Rift Basin in southwestern Tanzania. After painstakingly removing the rock from the delicate specimen, the team announced the discovery of a new mammal in 2003, yet they conservatively refrained from establishing a name for the enigmatic new species until additional details of its anatomy could be revealed. In the intervening years, improvements in high-resolution x-ray computed tomography enabled the team to document detailed anatomy of the specimen and to establish Galulatherium as a species new to science.

"The analysis of Galulatherium has been a collaborative process, engaging with a group of experts to tackle the unique morphology of this specimen," noted Dr. Patrick O'Connor, professor of anatomy at Ohio University and lead author of the paper. "Additional information gleaned from density-based microCT analyses, particularly the presence of ever-growing, enamel-less teeth, has allowed us to compare Galulatherium with other Mesozoic and early Cenozoic mammals, as well as with modern groups like sloths, in order to establish the best anatomical and functional analogs for this unique type of dentition."