Scientists find 74-million-year-old mammal fossil in Chile

Santiago: Scientists have discovered the fossil of a tiny mouse sized mammal that lived in the time of the dinosaurs in Chilean Patagonia. Yeuther...

Santiago: Scientists have discovered the fossil of a tiny mouse-sized mammal that lived in the time of the dinosaurs in Chilean Patagonia.

"Yeutherium pressor" weighed between 30 and 40 grams (about one ounce) and lived in the Upper Cretaceous period, about 74 million years ago.

It is the smallest mammal ever found in this region of South America, dating back to the era when it was part of a continental land mass known as Gondwana.

The fossil consists of "a small piece of jaw with a molar and the crown and roots of two other molars," said Hans Puschel, who led the team of scientists from the University of Chile and

Chile's Millennium Nucleus research center on early mammals.