Beyond Bizarre: The "Crazy Beast" of Madagascar

By David Krause, Ph.D.

It was the discovery of a lifetime!

It was 2002, three years after we had collected a 150-pound plaster jacket from some Cretaceous rocks on the island of Madagascar. When collected, it was thought to contain only some scrappy, associated bones of a fossil crocodile. Not a high priority.

But there it was, deep inside the plaster jacket. Something different beneath the crocodile bones: The fuzzy outlines on a series of X-ray radiographs revealed what looked to be a complete, well-preserved skeleton of a 66-million-year-old mammal.

I was stunned, disbelieving what I saw.

Stitched-together radiographs taken in 2002 showing image of mammal skeleton. Photo courtesy of David Krause.

Earlier this year, we announced the discovery of this new mammal in Nature, arguably the world's top scientific journal. After 18 years of puzzling and a breakthrough in the identification of another mammal, we finally had it.

But what is it?

The skeleton is beyond bizarre.

The skull has four (instead of two) rodent-like upper incisors and molars, the likes of which are unknown in any mammal, extinct or alive.
The bones of the snout have more holes than any known mammal—holes that served as passageways for nerves and blood vessels supplying a snout covered with whiskers.
There is one very large, midline hole on the top of the nose, another feature for which there is also just no parallel in any known fossil or living mammal.
The bizarreness is also evident in the skeleton behind the head. The trunk has more vertebrae than any Mesozoic mammal, the tail is extraordinarily short and the shin bone is strangely curved.

And the list of anatomical oddities goes on.

Adalatherium illustration. Lifelike reconstruction of Adalatherium hui from the Late Cretaceous of Madagascar. ©Denver Museum of Nature & Science/Andrey Atuchin.

The many bizarre features of this mammal, and its unusually large size, led us to name it Adalatherium, which, when translated from the Malagasy and Greek languages, means "crazy beast."

To find out more about this incredible discovery, visit dmns.org/adalatherium.

Your legacy gift could lead the way to our next discovery of a lifetime. Contact DMNS Advancement at 303.370.8262 or development@dmns.org to learn more.

Information contained herein was accurate at the time of posting. The information on this website is not intended as legal or tax advice. For such advice, please consult an attorney or tax advisor. Figures cited in any examples are for illustrative purposes only. References to tax rates include federal taxes only and are subject to change. State law may further impact your individual results. California residents: Annuities are subject to regulation by the State of California. Payments under such agreements, however, are not protected or otherwise guaranteed by any government agency or the California Life and Health Insurance Guarantee Association. Oklahoma residents: A charitable gift annuity is not regulated by the Oklahoma Insurance Department and is not protected by a guaranty association affiliated with the Oklahoma Insurance Department. South Dakota residents: Charitable gift annuities are not regulated by and are not under the jurisdiction of the South Dakota Division of Insurance.