Scrat from Ice Age and Castorocauda Lutrasimilis

Posted on May 31, 2006

Scrat is a prehistoric squirrel/rate creature in the hit animated films: Ice Age and Ice Age: The Meltdown. Many of the ads that promoted the latest movie featured Scrat scrambling after his precious acorn. The ads seemed to have worked as Ice Age: The Meltdown is approaching the $200 million mark at the box office.

Incidentally, a recent New Scientist article says a prehistorical beaver-like animal called Castorocauda lutrasimilis was discovered that pushes the earliest known aquatic mammal back nearly 40 million years further into the past.

The beaver-like animal actually lived 164 million years ago during the Jurassic period. There are mammals known to have lived during this period but they are typically very small and not beaver sized. Perhaps, there was a silly Scrat-like creature that lived 160 million years ago as well?

Here are some Scrat highlights from Fox.