Slow Before-Three-Swellings Little-Delta-Beast

Deltatheridium pretrituberculare tardum

    In late Cretaceous Asia, what will become the Gobi Desert is home to an inordinate diversity of animals, including mammals.

    Deltatheridium pretrituberculare tradum, a weaslelike marsupial of the Gobi, is a predator.  Where, in other places, it is only small dinosaurs that prey on the shrew-like mammals, the Gobi supports enough prey that the mammals themselves have radiated into predatory niches.

Thanks to Nick Pharris for helping to translate the latin name.

Other sites containing pertinent information:

• Dinosaur Mailing List
• Three paleo articles in Nature
• Deltatheridiumbeing hunted by Velociraptors (at the bottom of the page)