When the results from Italy arrived dating the age of the site, the researchers knew they were facing an important discovery. Something completely unexpected.
Geological records placed the age of those remains at least 270 million years old, making them the oldest of their kind on the planet.
A team of scientists had just discovered in the mountains of Mallorca, in an unspecified location but located near the picturesque town of Banyalbufar, a unique fossil that could help refine the writing of the evolutionary history of mammals. In other words, our own lineage.
These are the remains of a gorgonopsid, a creature that inhabited the planet long before the long reign of the dinosaurs. An animal one meter in length, quadrupedal with saber teeth. Resembling a dog, but without ears or fur, like a snake. Warm-blooded like mammals but capable of laying eggs like reptiles. A creature between the amphibian and terrestrial worlds, an agile and voracious predator.
Until now, fossils of one of them had never been found in these latitudes, in currently temperate regions. The specimens discovered so far were scattered in Russia and South Africa.
"Not only that," recounts Josep Fortuny, one of the research directors and an expert at the Catalan Institute of Paleontology Miquel Crusafont (ICP), "until now, the remains found worldwide dated at least 10 million years after those we found in Mallorca." A not very large gap in Earth's monumental chronology but extensive enough to reconsider the known history of this ancestral species, whose legacy is part of the same evolutionary line of mammals that, after branching out over time, distantly preceded humans.
"Due to the age of the fossils found, this discovery revolutionizes the study of distant mammal ancestors," excitedly explains Fortuny to EL MUNDO from his office at the ICP.
Gorgonopsids, creatures halfway between reptiles and mammals, lived in the Permian, a geological period of significant and abrupt changes that lasted approximately between 290 and 250 million years ago and marked the end of the Paleozoic era.
They were carnivores and dominant predators in their ecosystem, rich in other species and food, but disappeared due to the great extinction at the end of that era, the Permian mass extinction, the most devastating in Earth's history.
At that time, Mallorca did not exist, it was not an island. Its current territory was part of Pangea, the supercontinent. It was located approximately at an equatorial latitude, in the geographical zone where Congo or Guinea in Africa are today. The climate of the area was monsoonal: alternating between wet and very dry seasons.
The site where the oldest known gorgonopsid fossil was discovered, now mountainous, was then an alluvial plain where torrential water carried sediment, creating temporary ponds.
Places where, according to the fossils found, this and other species came to drink and feed. In that same environment in Banyalbufar, another important fossil was recently found: that of the Tramuntanosaurus, an omnivorous reptile, slightly smaller, which also marked a milestone in the paleontological history of Mallorca, described in 2023.
"It is surprising the large number of bone remains we have found, from skull fragments, vertebrae, and ribs to a very well-preserved femur," explains Rafel Matamales, curator of the Balearic Museum of Natural Sciences (MUCBO) and associated researcher at the Catalan Institute of Paleontology Miquel Crusafont (ICP), one of the scientists who led the discovery. "In fact, when we started this excavation, we never thought we would find so many remains of this type of animal in Mallorca," he confesses.
Among the excavated fossil remains, a nearly complete leg stands out, allowing researchers to study how the animal moved. Unlike reptiles, which have a more ancestral locomotion with more spread-out legs, gorgonopsids had their legs placed more vertically and therefore moved in a way intermediate between reptiles and mammals. This system is more efficient for walking and especially for running.
Their characteristic saber teeth confirm that this animal acted as a top predator in its ecosystem and had a carnivorous diet, a trait shared by all gorgonopsids worldwide.
"Saber teeth are a common feature in the great predators of ecosystems, and what we found probably was in the environment in which it lived," emphasizes Àngel Galobart, researcher at the ICP and director of the Museu de la Conca Dellà.
The study of this fossil will allow experts to continue building the evolutionary puzzle, adding another link and expanding the study period of this species as one of the life forms that bridged the gap between the reptile world and the diverse and modern universe of mammals.
The excavation of the site began in 2019 but had to be temporarily halted due to the pandemic. It resumed between 2021 and 2022.
There are currently no plans for the exhibition of the remains, although it could be developed in the future, especially thanks to the involvement of the Mallorca Council in the research and preservation of the unique and still mysterious site where the remains lie.