Until now, echidnas and platypuses were the only egg-laying mammals known, even as fossils.
Last week, Australian researchers announced that it belongs to a new family of monotremes, the Kollikodontidae (Nature, vol 377, p 418).
The new monotreme is only the second fossilmammal found in Australia from the Mesozoic Era, the age of the dinosaurs, which ended 65 million years ago.
