Announced in October 2026, Megacauda sungei paddled through lakes 165 million years ago with a scaly, beaver-like tail — possibly the oldest swimming mammal relative ever found, and it ate other animals.
The Reuters report (Oct 8, 2026) unveiling Megacauda sungei, a 165-million-year-old mammal relative with a flat, scaly tail built for paddling through Jurassic water.
Live Science on the platypus-like body and otter-like habits — and the stomach contents showing this little swimmer hunted and ate small vertebrates.
In 2006 another beaver-tailed, fish-eating mammaliaform turned up in the same region of China — the first hint this aquatic lifestyle was no fluke.
The original report on Castorocauda, which shattered the old assumption that every Mesozoic mammal was a tiny, shrew-like creature scurrying underfoot.
The wider family that includes true mammals and their closest extinct cousins — now known to include burrowers, gliders and swimmers like Megacauda.
Where creatures like Megacauda sit on our family tree: the long road from dinosaur-age ancestors to the mammals alive today.
Palaeontologist Julien Benoit on the synapsids — where hair, warm blood and milk first appeared, hundreds of millions of years before Megacauda.