Atacama Desert fossil discovery challenges climate history

The discovery of a 9-million-year-old fossilized tooth from a capybara relative in northern Chile's Atacama Desert is challenging scientific assumptions about the region's climate history. The tooth suggests that the area, currently one of the driest places on Earth, was once a much wetter environment featuring wetlands and forests.

Researchers recovered the specimen from a sediment bed at El Morro within the Bahía Inglesa Formation. This discovery contradicts the long-held view that the Atacama has remained continuously dry for approximately 40 million years. The study, published in Scientific Reports, marks the oldest record of a capybara in coastal Chile.