Scrat from Ice Age could have been real

Scientists have discovered the fossil of a creature that looked remarkably like Scrat, the saber-toothed squirrel from Ice Age.

The previously undiscovered species has been named Cronopio dentiacutus by the researchers, who revealed their find in Nature this week. The small creature is part of an animal group called dryolestoids, which is an extinct group distantly related to modern mammals and marsupials.

Cronopio was around 10-15cm long and lived more than 100 million years ago, in a period of time known as the Late Cretaceous. Its discovery has helped to fill in a 60-million-year gap in the fossil record for that time.

The discovery was made in the Rio Negro region of Argentina. Skulls of mammals are quite delicate and it is rare to find good specimens, but this one was embedded in rock. It took technicians several years to carefully remove the rock from around the skull.

“This is without a doubt one of the most unusual mammals that I have seen, extinct or living, with its long, compressed snout and oversized canine teeth,” said John R Wible of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

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