About half a million years ago, hundreds of mammals, similar to armadillos, horses and sloths, ended her life in a karst funnel, which will later become Florida. This karst funnel, in which the animals found their last refuge, is located in the wooded Big-Bend region and was filled with a siege for the next 500,000 years, until two fossils appeared, Popular Science writes.

In June 2022, Robert Sinibaldi and Joseph Branin combed the riverbed in search of fossils in the muddy waters of the Steinhatchi River. During the expedition, the researchers looked down and saw what seemed to him with a horse's teeth. They continued the search and eventually found the cerebral ceremony and the skull of the tapir, as well as other fossils - many in an almost pristine state.

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According to Sinibaldi, the point was not so much in the number of fossils, but also in their quality. Scientists note that they knew about an extremely important place, but did not understand how important it. In their recently published study, scientists described 552 fossils found in the prehistoric karst funnel in Florida.

Researchers shared their conclusions with the Florida Museum of Natural History in Heinsville. Paleontologists of the museum have determined that fossils have been preserved in the obscure period of the Pleistocene glacial periods, called the Middle Irvington century of the North American ground mammals.

According to the co -author of the study, the paleontology manager of the vertebrates at the Florida Museum Rachel Narducci, the most curious is that in the entire annals of fossils, and not only in Florida, there is no interval to which this place is - the Middle Irvington Age of North American Treasury Mammals.

Note that for this discovery in Sanshain there was only one place with the fossils of this period. During this period of time, the Steinhatchi River probably followed another channel when fossils were preserved. As the river was approaching Karst funnel over the next few thousand years, in the end, she probably pulled out the former hole and washed away fossils. As a result of fossil, they were open along the river bed.

Science does not have many fossils dated this period, but they have enough samples from periods before and after. From this chronicle of fossils it follows that some species from the early Pleistocene died out, while others first appear in the Late Playystocene. There are also some species that have undergone physical changes during this evolutionary gap, including the now extinct genus Holmesina - animals resembling modern battleships.

According to Narducci, Holmesina first appeared about two million years ago and at that time the individuals weighed about 68 kg, but most modern battleships weigh from only 1.3 to 9 kg. However, scientists also found that over time, creatures became larger while the new look, Holmesina Septentrionalis, did not reach a weight of about 215 kg. In fact, this is the same animal, but over time it has become much larger, and its bones changed so much that scientists described it as another species.

These new fossils offer a rare view of how this process happened. The bones of the ankle and foot correspond to the size of a larger type H. septentrionalis, but also have features of a more old and small form H. Floridanus. According to Narducci, the work with colleagues indicates that the anatomy of the species seemed to lag behind the increase.

Previously, Focus wrote that for the first time in history, scientists gathered the fossils of the "