Paleontologists find a 231 million years old saber-toothed Triassic squirrel

Because of its tremendous resemblance, paleontologists thought of naming this new species in allusion to Scrat, the renowned squirrel-like character with saber teeth in the movie, Ice Age. Although they finally named it Pseudotherium argentinus, meaning, false Theria from Argentina. The entire skull is less than six centimeters in length and was found in Ischigualasto with two of the oldest dinosaurs known to date. Dr. Ricardo Martínez, a researcher at the Institute and Museum of Natural Sciences of the University of San Juan (IMCN), told the Agency CTyS-UNLaM: “The new species has a very long, flat, and shallow snout, and its very long fangs located almost at the tip of the snout, so the resemblance [to Scrat] is tremendous”. The skull was surprisingly well preserved, so that, at first glance, the similarity was obvious. “At some point, I thought of calling it Scrat,” said Martinez, who conducted a very thorough study of the skull of this mammaliamorph (mammal-relative) alon