Fossils found. Pit bull-like creature had feet of a bear

BERKELEY
Central Valley fossils open window to rich era of beasts
Pit bull-like creature had feet of a bear
Charles Burress, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, February 23, 2005


A small scratch on the Earth's skin near Fresno has yielded pay dirt for the master sleuths who make old bones talk.

Fossils found during construction have opened a new window into that turbulent time when the infant San Andreas Fault was throwing tantrums, the Sierra were thrusting up like steroid muscles, and the king of fang-and-claw terror in California was a hulking beast with the face of a large dog and the feet of a bear.

The fragmentary remains are being studied at UC Berkeley as welcome messengers from an unusual geologic interlude 15 million years ago that summoned forth a rich mammalian phantasmagoria.

Fearsome bear-dogs, large herds of three-toed horses, the original camels, the first perching birds, giant tortoises, early elephants, rhinos and a vast menagerie of other species flourished in a dramatic milieu in California's Central Valley that has long been a source of fascination and frustration for scientists seeking to uncover its long-guarded secrets.

"It just blew me out of my mind," Xiaoming Wang, associate curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, said after he laid eyes on the skull of a previously unknown badger-size creature that is not only a new species but a whole new genus within the mustelidae family of otters, skunks, weasels and their kith. "It looks like it was very ferocious."

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http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/02/23/BAGFVBFKJ21.DTL

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