MULTITUBERCULATE AND OTHER MAMMAL HAIR RECOVERED FROM PALEOGENE EXCRETA

Evidence of hair from several extinct mammals has been recovered from a rich accumulation of fossil excrement from the Late Palaeocene beds of Inner Mongolia, China, This highly unusual and previously undocumen ted depositional occurrence consists of hundreds of mammalian carnivor e coprolites (fossil faeces) and a lesser number of probably raptorial bird regurgitalites(1) (fossil pellets). The fossil hair occurs as im pressions and natural casts in the extremely fine-grained, calcareous matrix that cements the skeletal remains within these faecal structure s and preserves even the cuticular scale pattern on individual hair, H air from at least four mammalian taxa, most notably the multitubercula te Lambdopsalis bulla(2), has been identified. This record constitutes the first tangible evidence that, along with monotremes and therian m ammals, multituberculates were hirsuite, and lends support for the pre sence of this mammalian feature in the most recent common ancestor of these three groups.