On December 22, the CCTV Spring Festival Gala mascot, "Tu Yuanyuan," was officially announced. Tu Yuanyuan's signature four incisors are taken from the typical features of the ecological reconstruction of the "Anhui Mo Pikachu" fossil. What is the significance of the "Anhui Mo Pikachu" fossil?
Like modern rabbits, the "Anhui Model Pika" has four upper incisors.
The "Anhui Pikachu" is the earliest known rabbit-like animal in the world, living approximately 62 million years ago during the Early Paleocene epoch. It was researched and named by Mr. Li Chuankui of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IVPP).
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the country began large-scale geological and mineral surveys. The Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences undertook the investigation of the South my country Red Beds. These large and small terrestrial basins contain extensive Paleocene strata and rich fossil resources. The "Anhui pika" fossil was discovered during this South China Red Beds survey. It was found in the Qianshan Basin of Anhui Province and was first studied and reported in 1977.
The “Anhui Model Pika” fossil is currently housed in the Paleozoological Museum of China. This type of fossil includes parts of the skull and left and right mandibles that preserve the incisors and cheek teeth.
"Its upper jaw has two pairs of incisors, one in front and one behind. The front pair is larger and grows throughout its life, and you can clearly see a groove between the incisors from the side of the lips. Right behind it is a pair of smaller incisors. These features are consistent with modern rabbits. So the image of 'Round Rabbit' retains four upper incisors, two large and two small, which is due to this feature." She further explained that both pikas and modern rabbits have incisors that grow throughout their lives, so rabbits need to constantly grind their teeth to prevent the incisors from growing too fast and affecting normal eating.
The "Anhui pika" is fossil evidence of "homologous relationship between pikas and rabbits".
Rabbits are a general term for animals in the order Lagomorpha, while mice are the largest family within the order Rodentia. However, in the 18th century, Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus proposed the concept of rodents, including animals such as mice, rabbits, and shrews. At that time, it was generally believed that rabbits and mice were related. However, in the 20th century, with the deepening of research, more and more scholars discovered that rabbits and mice differ not only in the number and morphology of their upper incisors but also in other anatomical structures, thus proposing that rabbits and mice are not related. Due to the lack of crucial fossil evidence, this controversy has persisted for nearly 100 years, becoming a hot topic in the biological community at the time.
In the 1970s, fossils of *Anhuimo pika* and *Dawn rat* were discovered in the Qianshan Basin of Anhui Province. *Anhuimo pika* resembles a lagomorph, while *Dawn rat* exhibits many rodent characteristics. Fossil evidence suggests significant overlap between the two. Based on this evidence, in 1984, Li Chuankui proposed the theory of "pika-rabbit co-origin," and later further suggested that East Asia is the origin of both rodents and lagomorphs.
my country possesses nearly complete fossil evidence of rabbit evolution.
Li Chuankui and other senior paleontologists led their research teams to travel across the country for decades, filling in the gaps step by step, and giving my country nearly complete fossil evidence of rabbit evolution.
The *Anhuimo pika* is an ancestral group of lagomorphs. In 2007, Chinese scientists discovered a well-preserved lagomorph specimen in the Eren Basin of Inner Mongolia, naming it *Ancient Dawson's Hare*. Dawson's Hare dates back 53 million years. "This is currently the most primitive lagomorph fossil known. In North America and Europe, lagomorph fossils appeared much later than 53 million years ago," she said. *Ancient Dawson's Hare* is a transitional type between *Anhuimo pika* and modern rabbits; these fossil evidences essentially string together the complete evolution of lagomorphs.
Therefore, the Spring Festival Gala mascot "Tu Yuanyuan" is not only the zodiac rabbit in the traditional cultural sense, but also the "ancestor" of the Chinese white rabbit, which embodies the spirit of Chinese scientists' pursuit of knowledge.
