Sinodelphys or "Chinese opossum" is to date the oldest marsupial fossil known. It was discovered around 2003 in Liaoning Province, China, by a team of scientists including John Wible and Zhe-Xi Luo. Sinodelphys szalayi grew only 15 centimeters long and possibly weighed about 30 grams. Its fossilized skeleton is surounded by impressions of fur and soft tissue, thanks to the exceptional sediment that preserves such details. The limb structure of Sinodelphys shows this little mammal was a tree-dweller, like its non-marsupial contemporary Eomaia. Sinodelphys probably hunted worms and insects. Most Mesozoic marsupials have been found in North America, South America, and Asia. Most lived during the Late Cretaceous between 90-65 million years ago. Eomaia scansoria (dawn mother) is a recently discovered extinct mammal that may be one of the earliest ancestors of the eutheria yet to have been found. ... The Mesozoic is one of three geologic eras of Phanerozoic eon. ...
Mesozoic mammals The word category (plural categories; from Greek κατηγορια meaning assertion or accusation, hence categorical denial) has several meanings: it is used informally to mean a class of things, as in the category of all living things. See categorization. ...
Prior to the discovery of Sinodelphys, the previously earliest metatherian fossils were some isolated teeth from the 110 million year old sediments of North America.
A nearly complete skeleton of Sinodelphys, preserved on a shale slab, was found in the Mesozoic Yixian Formation in western Liaoning Province of China.
As with modern tree-dwelling animals, Sinodelphys' shoulder, limbs and feet suggest that it was quite capable of climbing.
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