Researchers just discovered that the spiny mouse was concealing bony plates beneath the skin over its tail.
www.nytimes.com
A new study shows that bony plates (Osteoderms) commonly found in the skin of reptiles, and only known in mammals from the skin of armadillos, have now been discovered in the tails of a subfamily of rodents, the Deomyinae, including the spiny mouse, Acomys. This study by Department of Biology and Florida Museum researchers Malcolm Maden, Trey Polvadore, Arod Polanco, W. Brad Barbazuk, and Ed Stanley, published this week in iScience, suggests a more complex evolutionary history to these hard skin structures. Discovering these bony skin plates in the tails of rodents may suggest these are more common in modern vertebrates, even mammals, than previously thought.
Links to publication:
www.cell.com/iscience/pdf/S2589-0042(23)00856-8.pdf
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/24/science/spiny-mouse-armor-tail.html