The high altitude Tibetan Plateau may be the cradle of "hypercarnivorous" evolution — and we're not talking about people who follow the Paleo diet. Based on analysis of a recently discovered extinct fox in the Himalayas, researchers suggest that the cold, mountainous plateau may have served as an evolutionary nursery for species that today populate the Arctic, more than a thousand miles to the north.
Researchers today report a new species of Tibetan fox called Vulpes qiuzhudingi, which lived 3.6-5 million years ago in the Tibetan Plateau. Analysis of the fossil indicates it has distinctly "hypercarnivorous" teeth, which means it evolved to be highly predatory rather than a more generalist meat-eater who might also have munched on vegetation. That same tooth pattern is present in the modern Arctic fox, Vulpes lagopus, but not in any other known member of the vulpine family. The Tibetan fox predates the Arctic fox by ...
