Ancient reptile Captorhinus could detach its tail to elude predators
March 6, 2018 by This Study Was Possible Thanks To The Treasure Trove Of Fossils Available At The Cave Deposits Near Richards Spur, Okla., University of Toronto
Imagine a voracious carnivore sinking its teeth into the tail of a small reptile, anticipating a delicious lunch, when, in a flash, the reptile is gone and the carnivore is left holding a wiggling tail between its jaws.
A new study by a University of Toronto research team led by Professor Robert Reisz and Ph.D. student Aaron LeBlanc shows how small reptiles that lived 289 million years ago could detach their tails to escape the grasp of predators – the oldest known example of such behaviour. The study was published March 5 in the open source journal Scientific Reports.
Read more at:
https://phys.org/news/2018-03-ancient-reptile-captorhinus-detach-tail.html#jCp
