{"id":18209,"date":"2014-04-18T12:00:32","date_gmt":"2014-04-18T12:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/research\/researchers-discover-the-earliest-ancestor-of-land-herbivores\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T10:21:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T04:51:08","slug":"researchers-discover-the-earliest-ancestor-of-land-herbivores","status":"publish","type":"research","link":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/researchers-discover-the-earliest-ancestor-of-land-herbivores","title":{"rendered":"Researchers discover the earliest ancestor of land herbivores"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana,geneva,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">The discovery of a fossilized juvenile skeleton of <em>Eocasea martini<\/em> has helped researchers understand how carnivores transitioned into herbivores for the first time on land. The 300-million-year old skeleton is less than 20 cm long and consists of a partial skull, most of the vertebral column, the pelvis, and a hind limb. The researchers were able to compare the skeletal anatomy of related animals and conclude that <em>Eocasea martini<\/em> belonged to the caseid branch of the group Synapsid. This group, which includes early terrestrial herbivores and large top predators, ultimately evolved into modern living mammals. Read more in <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.plosone.org\/article\/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0094518#s5\">PLoS ONE<\/a><\/em>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: verdana,geneva,sans-serif;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">RR Reisz and J Fr\u00f6bisch, <em>PLoS ONE<\/em>, 2014. DOI: 10.1371\/journal.pone.0094518<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":33313,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false},"new_tags":[],"series":[],"subject":[2868],"class_list":["post-18209","research","type-research","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","subject-plant-and-animal-science"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Researchers discover the earliest ancestor of land herbivores | Editage Insights<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The discovery of a fossilized juvenile skeleton of Eocasea martini has helped researchers understand how carnivores transitioned into herbivores for the first time on land. 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