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A Cretaceous symmetrodont therian with some monotreme-like postcranial features

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  • Gang Li

    (Chinese Academy of Sciences)

  • Zhe-Xi Luo

    (Carnegie Museum of Natural History
    Nanjing University)

Abstract

Early mammals regroup The Yixian Formation in China has yielded some of the most important mammalian fossils of the past decade — notably a series of feathered dinosaurs — and continues to produce fossils that challenge conventional wisdom about the evolution of early mammals. The latest is a well preserved ‘spalacotheroid symmetrodont’, a relative of the modern therians (the marsupials and placentals). Parts of its skeleton are very un-therian like: from lumbar vertebrae down to the ankle, this mammal is very like the platypus, perhaps as a result of functional convergence. This new fossil is also of interest from the palaeobiogeography perspective. Like many other mammals in the Early Cretaceous, spalacotheroids seem to have evolved initially in Eurasia and then to have dispersed to North America.

Suggested Citation

  • Gang Li & Zhe-Xi Luo, 2006. "A Cretaceous symmetrodont therian with some monotreme-like postcranial features," Nature, Nature, vol. 439(7073), pages 195-200, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:439:y:2006:i:7073:d:10.1038_nature04168
    DOI: 10.1038/nature04168
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