There are gaps between reptile-mammal
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Contents |
Claim
There is a great gulf between reptiles and mammals, with no transitional fossils between them.
Source
- Anon, 1985. Life--How Did It Get Here? Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc., p. 80-81.
Responses
- This is absolutely false. Indeed, many different reptilian fossils are found in Permian and Triassic rocks that are such a blend of features common to reptiles of the day as well as features ancestral to mammals that they are called "mammal-like" reptiles and have their own sub-group.
- The platypus, long- and short-beaked echidnas are living examples of creatures descended from ancient early mammals that retain transitional traits between reptiles and mammals: they are only mildly warm blooded, lay eggs (which are in some ways very like slightly tougher placentas that are delivered intact and hatch almost immediately), and their female's mammaries are only slits that supurate milk.
- Therapsida
- Mammals are not descended from reptiles. Rather, they share a common ancestor (amniotes). This "gap" is meaningless.
- add more responses
Links
- Flank, Lenny, 1995. The Therapsid--Mammal Transitional Series. [1]
References
- Kermack, KA, F Mussett & HW Rigney, 1981. The skull of Morganucodon. Zool. J. Linn. Soc. 71: 1-158.
- Luo, Z-X, AW Crompton, & A-L Sun, 2001. A new mammaliaform from the Early Jurassic and evolution of mammalian characteristics. Science 292: 1535-1546.
- White, T., 2002a. Palaeos Vertebrates 420.500: Cynodontia: Probainognathia. [2]
- White, T., 2002b. Palaeos Vertebrates 420.300: Mammaliformes: Symmetrodonta. [3]
Further Reading
- Benton, Michael J., 1991. The Rise of the Mammals. Crescent Books, New York.
