Interestingly, scientists brought into prominence on Thursday a fossil of the oldest known ancestor of modern rats - an energetic creature that could climb, lodge in a burrow as well as eat just about anything discovered in China. According to the US journal Science, the newly named species Rugosodon eurasiaticus had flexible ankles for tree-climbing and sharp teeth that could chew on both animals and plants.

Furthermore, the study led by Mr Chong-Xi Yuan from the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences in Beijing explained that these adaptations helped the ancient rat-like rodentsknown as multituberculates become among the longest lived mammals in history. Having confidence in the truth that it originated 160 million years ago during the Jurassic Period, they lived for near about 100 million years in the age of the dinosaurs in precedence of the modern rodents prevailed over them.

That's certainly a mysterious creature!

(AW:Samrat Biswas)