Older mustelids
This dude found the earliest known fossil weasel, somewhere in Spain. Well, a protoweasel. Here’s Grok’s synopsis:
A research team that includes Chris Law (University of Washington principal research scientist and affiliate curator at the Burke Museum) described a new fossil species named Galanthis baskini.
It comes from the Late Miocene of Spain (Las Casiones site, roughly 6.5–6.3 million years old). This pushes the known origin of the weasel subfamily Mustelinae (weasels, ferrets, minks, etc.) back by about three million years. Previously the oldest confirmed true weasels were around 3.5 million years old.
The animal was very small — estimated at about 135 grams (roughly the size of a modern least weasel) — and already had the sharp teeth of a small carnivore.
Chris Law is quoted in the article discussing how this fossil helps explain the early evolution of the distinctive small, elongated weasel body plan.
The paper is here, and it looks dead boring. What was more interesting was the clip of the guy talking about it – he was talking about the elongation of mustelids, selected for nipping into burrows and murdering rodents. It’s always fun to hear a scientist talk about his specialty. Unfortunately, it was an embedded video on a Facebook post, so no easy link.
July 30, 2026 — 4:53 pm
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