This Little Mammal Lived With the Dinosaurs

“It’s just impressive it’s survived this long,” Adam Brandt, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois, said in a press release. “It survived the asteroid; it survived human colonization and the rats and mice humans brought with them that wiped out the solenodon’s closest relatives.”

Researchers from the University of Illinois and University of Puerto Rico made the discovery after successfully sequencing the animal’s mitochondrial DNA, completing a missing part on the tree of life.

Mitochondrial DNA is important because it is passed down from mothers to their babies without changing. It creates a genetic tree that helps scientists trace back the origins of creatures.

It wasn’t easy getting this information. Because solenodons are endangered animals, scientists had to collaborate with international researchers to track down the creatures to sample their DNA.

The findings correlate with some theories about how the reddish rodent-like animal ended up calling the island of Hispaniola, about 870 miles from Florida, home. Some geologists believe the island was once part of Mexico, but 75 million years ago it started drifting away from the Yucatan Peninsula.

“Whether they got on the island when the West Indies ran into Mexico 75 million years ago, or whether they floated over on driftwood or whatever else much later is not very clear,” lead researcher Alfred Roca, a professor of animal sciences and member of the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, said in a statement.

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