‘Fido-saurus’ gives scientists new lead

John von Radowitz

Repenomamos giganticus was over a metre long.

The discovery of the creature’s fossil skeleton in China has forced scientists to re-think their view of primitive mammals during the age of the dinosaurs.

Mammals 100 million years ago were thought to be small-fry, the size of rats and mice.

R giganticus turns that idea on its head, . It probably had a varied diet and could have preyed on small or young dinosaurs. A specimen of the creature’s smaller cousin, R robustus, found near the same site in Liaoning had the skeleton of a baby dinosaur in its stomach.

Dr Meng Jin, from the American Museum of Natural History in New York, one of the scientists who reported the discovery yesterday in the journal Nature, said: “This new evidence... is is giving us a drastically new picture of many of the animals that lived in the age of the dinosaurs.”