• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

World’s Only Known Cold-Blooded Mammal Lived On An Island And Aged Similar To A Crocodile

January 26, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

One of the things we first learn about the animal kingdom is the difference between warm and cold-blooded animals. While reptiles bask in the sun to get warm, mammals – including those in the sea – must eat regularly to gain the energy needed to sustain a constant internal temperature. However, one mammal, trapped on a resource-poor Mediterranean island, did something rather extraordinary and reversed the norm, becoming the only cold-blooded mammal in the world.

A long-extinct goat species, Myotragus balearicus, once roamed across the land that would have connected the Balearic Islands to mainland Europe. Here it stayed, and as the Balearic Islands became surrounded by the sea the ancient goat found itself living on what is now the Spanish island of Mallorca. 

Advertisement

At only 45 centimeters (17.7 inches) tall, these animals underwent a series of morphological changes resulting in shorter limbs, a smaller brain size, and smaller sense organs – effectively becoming a dwarf species – to survive. These goats are also the first animals to have been discovered with the same kind of bone structures that are found in reptiles.

Reptiles grow very slowly and have the ability to control or even completely stop their growth based on resource availability. This periodic slowing or cessation of the growth rate leaves telltale signs in the bones of these species. 

By looking at the bone histology of the extinct goat, researchers found the same lamellar-zone tissues, which had previously only been found in ectothermic reptiles. The team compared the goat bones to those of crocodiles and found remarkable similarities, with the same ability to have slow and flexible growth rates, and even stop growing altogether. M. balearicus was also found to reach maturity quite late, by around 12 years; by contrast, a typical goat species might reach sexual maternity before 9 months of age, according to MSD Veterinary Manual.

Research also suggests that these goats would have had a much slower lifestyle than typical modern goat species. Rather than running and jumping over the island’s rocks, they would have spent more time in the sunshine and become more more slow-moving. 

Advertisement

“Myotragus not only decreased aerobic capacities […] and behavioral traits […] but also flexibly synchronized growth rates and metabolic needs to the prevailing resource conditions as do ectothermic reptiles,” researchers Meike Köhler and Salvador Moyà-Solà wrote in a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2009.

Looking at the bones alone does bring controversy. In cold-blooded species or ectotherms, the bones are typically made of slow-growing lamellar bone. However, fast-growing fibrolamellar bones, typically found in warm-blooded species, have also been found in dinosaur species and in birds. The researchers take into account that there could be a third intermediate condition between what would be fully warm- or fully cold-blooded. 

The dwarf goat M. balearicus makes an excellent study model, because the island on which it lived had no natural predators. On the resource-poor island of Mallorca it developed reptile-like traits that allowed it to survive for 5.2 million years, more than twice as long as species on the mainland. 

However, because of the development of these traits, unfortunately the world’s only cold-blooded mammal species did not survive the arrival of humans to the island around 3,000 years ago, which, coupled with a decline in their preferred plant species, likely caused their extinction. 

Advertisement

An earlier version of this article was published in October 2023.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Soccer – FIFA backs down on threat to fine Premier clubs who play South American players
  2. U.S. House passes abortion rights bill, outlook poor in Senate
  3. Two children killed in missile strikes on Yemen’s Marib – state news agency
  4. We’ve Breached Six Of The Nine “Planetary Boundaries” For Sustaining Human Civilization

Source Link: World’s Only Known Cold-Blooded Mammal Lived On An Island And Aged Similar To A Crocodile

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Mother Orca Seen Carrying Dead Calf Once Again On Washington Coast
  • A Busy Spider Season Is Brewing: Why This Fall Could See A Boom Of Arachnid Activity
  • What Alternatives Are There To The Big Bang Model?
  • Magnetic Flip Seen Around First Photographed Black Hole Pushes “Models To The Limit”
  • Something Out Of Nothing: New Approach Mimics Matter Creation Using Superfluid Helium
  • Surströmming: Why Sweden’s Stinky Fermented Fish Smells So Bad (But People Still Eat It)
  • First-Ever Recording Of Black Hole Recoil Captured During Merger – And You Can Listen To It
  • The Moon Is Moving Away From Earth At A Rate Of About 3.8 Centimeters Per Year. Will It Ever Drift Apart?
  • As Solar Storm Hits Earth NASA Finds “The Sun Is Slowly Waking Up”
  • Plate Tectonics And CO2 On Planets Suggest Alien Civilizations “Are Probably Pretty Rare”
  • How To Watch The “Awkward” Partial Solar Eclipse This Weekend
  • World’s Oldest Pots: 20,000-Year-Old Vessels May Have Been Used For Cooking Clams Or Brewing Beer
  • “The Body Is Slowly And Continuously Heated”: 14,000-Year-Old Smoked Mummies Are World’s Oldest
  • Pizza Slices, Polaroid Pictures, And Over 300 Hats: What’s Left Behind In Yellowstone’s Hydrothermal Areas?
  • The Mathematical Paradox That Lets You Create Something From Nothing
  • Ancient Asteroid Ripped Apart In Collision Had Flowing Water
  • Flying Foxes Include The World’s Biggest Bat And The Largest Mammal Capable Of True Flight
  • NASA Responds To Claims That Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS Is An Advanced Alien Spacecraft
  • Millions Of Tons Of Gold Are In Earth’s Oceans, Potentially Worth Over $2 Quadrillion
  • The Race Back To The Moon: US Vs China, Will What Happens Next Change The Future?
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version