Late Triassic (Norian)

Pant Quarry, Fissure Fill

Near Brigend, South Glamorgan, Wales

Excellent 1mm tooth of one of earliest mammals mounted on a standard microfossil slide

Mammal. Synapsid.

Morganucodon is considered the earliest known mammal by many paleontologists while others contend it belongs to a group closely-related to early mammals. Unlike most Mesozoic mammals, other parts of Morganucodon’s skeleton are known and there appears to be evidence it had fur and the females produced milk for their offspring which would qualify it as a mammal.

This is something many collectors don’t think about because it’s not something always commercially available. Most dealers would rather handle teeth they don’t need a magnifier to see clearly. This is something for the mammal collector who wants a sample of every group that has existed or a sample from various points in mammal evolution – a history going back to the dawn of the dinosaurs.