Tag: repenomamus

Eons Roundup 13

I haven’t posted any PBS Eons commissions here for quite a while, so let’s catch up a bit of the backlog:

An illustration of the extinct mammal Repenomamus robustus. It's a low-slung, stocky, badger-like animal with a thick tail, depicted as colored brown and white. It's shown baring a mouth full of pointed teeth.
Repenomamus robustus
An illustration of the extinct mammal Repenomamus giganticus. It's a low-slung, stocky, badger-like animal with a thick tail, depicted as colored yellow-brown and dark brown. It's shown walking with its head held down as if stalking something.
Repenomamus giganticus

The Cretaceous mammals Repenomamus robustus and Repenomamus giganticus, from “When Mammals Only Went Out At Night”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqZONKXWPfw

An illustration of a decaying carcass of the extinct whale Borealodon. Its skin is tattered and torn as if scavengers have been picking at it, and part of its lower jaw bone is exposed.
Borealodon osedax (carcass)

A carcass of the whale Borealodon, from “How Ancient Whales May Have Changed the Deep Ocean”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vb00-gcdtA

An illustration of the extinct early vertebrate Haikouichthys. It's a small eel-like animal with large eyes, a circular mouth, and seven gill slits. It's depicted as pale blue colored, and it's swimming in dark blue water.
Haikouichthys ercaicunensis
An illustration of the extinct early vertebrate Myllokunmingia. It's a small eel-like animal with fairly large eyes, a circular mouth, and six gill slits. It's depicted as pale green colored, and it's swimming in dark blue water.
Myllokunmingia fengjiaoa

And the early vertebrates Haikouichthys and Myllokunmingia, from “Why Sour May Be The Oldest Taste”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXgd_cNZSvk

Month of Mesozoic Mammals #12: Dinosaur-Eaters

Repenomamus

Living during the Early Cretaceous of China (125-122 mya), Repenomamus was part of a branch of the eutriconodonts known as gobiconodontids. These relatively big mammals were specialized carnivores, with strong bone-crushing jaws and their incisor teeth modified into long fang-like shapes.

Gobiconodon’s weird front-fangs
(cropped from Skeleton of Gobiconodon by Ghedoghedo || CC-BY-SA-3.0)

Repenomamus giganticus was roughly the size of a modern wolverine, about 1m long (3′3″). A second species in the same genus, Repenomamus robustus, was about two-thirds that size but still among some of the largest known Mesozoic mammals.

Since it was larger than some of the dinosaurs it lived alongside, it’s likely to have eaten some of them – and one specimen of R. robustus was actually found with the bones of a juvenile Psittacosaurus in its stomach.