Ancient pig – आवारा मुसाफिर

Ancient pig-like animal shows beginnings of mammalian brain evolution

June 22, 2024224 Views

More than 250 million years ago, Scotland was not veiled in mist and rain, as it often is today, but rather a desert blanketed in sand dunes. One of the denizens of this challenging landscape was a squat, vaguely pig-like mammal forerunner named Gordonia, with a pug face and two tusks protruding from beaked jaws. Using high-resolution, three-dimensional imaging on a fossil of this Permian Period creature, researchers have been able to see its brain cavity and make a digital replica of the brain, providing insight into the size and composition of this crucial organ at an early stage in mammalian evolution. To be clear, Gordonia's brain was a far cry from that of a modern mammal. But the relative size of its brain compared to its body seemed to presage the intelligence that later help...