'Hobbit' Creature, Wyoming Finds Show Mammals Evolved Quickly

Three new species of early mammals have been discovered based on fossils found in Wyoming's Great Divide Basin. An analysis of the fossils suggests these creatures rapidly evolved after dinosaurs went extinct about 66 million years ago, Ashley Strickland reported for CNN.

Photo Insert: The three new species discovered

The prehistoric mammals lived in North America a few hundred thousand years after dinosaurs disappeared from the face of the Earth. This is referred to as the early Puercan North American Land Mammal Age, approximately the first 328,000 years after dinosaur extinction.

Paleontologists used lower jaw bones and teeth to reveal more details about the mammals, which were condylarths, the ancestors of modern hoofed mammals like horses, hippos, cows and elephants.

Early mammals that lived alongside the dinosaurs and survived their extinction were quite small, typically ranging from mouse to rat-sized. These newly discovered mammals are a bit larger.

Beornus honeyi, the largest of these mammals, was likely the size of a house cat, and part of its name borrows from the character Beorn from J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" because the animal had inflated molars, or puffy cheek teeth. In the novel, Beorn was referred to as a "skin-changer" because he was a man who could take the form of a great black bear and might have sported similar dental features.

The other two species are Miniconus jeanninae, which was similar in size to a ring-tailed cat, and Conacodon hettingeri, which was in between the sizes of Beornus and Miniconus. The study published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology.

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