6 million years ago, this giant otter appeared on Earth

A new finding shows that the giant otter, about the size of modern wolves, used to live in China's wetlands 6 million years ago.

American paleontologists have discovered the largest otter fossil ever since excavating the ancient lake at Thuy Duong Ba, Zhao Thong City, Yunnan Province, southwest China.

This otter is called Siamogale melilutra , which is about the size of a wolf, weighs about 50kg, which is twice as big as the largest otter today.

This species belongs to an extinct ancient otter, which existed at least 18 million years ago. Previously we only had evidence of its existence in Thailand when it discovered its fossil teeth.

This species belongs to an extinct ancient otter, which existed at least 18 million years ago.

The discovery of a complete skull, both jaw and teeth, suggests that this creature has evolved to adapt to life at the time. Its jaws must be stronger to eat large hard shell animals around.

"From the vegetation and other animal groups found in Thuy Duong Ba, we know that this place used to be a swamp, shallow lake with quite dense vegetation , " said Dr. Denise Su, woman. In charge of the paleontology and ecological stocks at Cleveland Museum of Natural History, said.

These fossil teeth are very similar to modern otter. Experts believe that teeth have evolved as a result of the otter's diet throughout history.

"Many lines of otters have low jaws, round teeth, which lead us to many questions whether this is inherited from common ancestors, or because of the evolutionary process based on the diet of each other species. " Dr. Xiaoming Wang, the lead author of the study, in charge of Paleontology at the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History, said.

The skull was flattened during the fossil process so the researchers used a CT scanner to scan and reproduce the otter image with a computer.

The simulation results show that this otter has some common features with the badger, making it called Melilutra - in Latin, meles means badger and lutra is the otter.

This finding led scientists to questions about other aspects of the daily life of the Siamogale melilutra otter.