Earliest gliding mammal

The earliest mammal known to have been able to glide through the air is Volaticotherium antiquum, which is known from fossil material to have existed in what is now Inner Mongolia, in northeastern China, approximately 164 million years ago during the Jurassic Period. It exhibited a gliding membrane or patagium on each side of its body formed from fur-covered skin that extended not just between the limbs and at least the base of the tail (as in modern-day flying squirrels), but also between the digits of each paw. Even its tail was flattened, thereby further increasing its aerodynamic form. It is 70 million years older than the previous oldest-known gliding mammals.

This remarkable species is currently known only from a single fossil specimen, which was disinterred from the Daohugou Beds of Inner Mongolia's Ningcheng County, and was formally described and named in 2006. The only known member of its genus, it belongs to a taxonomic order of early mammals known as the eutriconodonts, which have no modern-day representatives.