Publication Date:
2006-02-25
Description:
A docodontan mammaliaform from the Middle Jurassic of China possesses swimming and burrowing skeletal adaptations and some dental features for aquatic feeding. It is the most primitive taxon in the mammalian lineage known to have fur and has a broad, flattened, partly scaly tail analogous to that of modern beavers. We infer that docodontans were semiaquatic, convergent to the modern platypus and many Cenozoic placentals. This fossil demonstrates that some mammaliaforms, or proximal relatives to modern mammals, developed diverse locomotory and feeding adaptations and were ecomorphologically different from the majority of generalized small terrestrial Mesozoic mammalian insectivores.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Ji, Qiang -- Luo, Zhe-Xi -- Yuan, Chong-Xi -- Tabrum, Alan R -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2006 Feb 24;311(5764):1123-7.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Earth Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing 200017, China.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16497926" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
Body Size
;
Bone and Bones/anatomy & histology
;
China
;
Dentition
;
Ear Ossicles/anatomy & histology
;
Environment
;
Feeding Behavior
;
*Fossils
;
Hair/anatomy & histology
;
*Mammals/anatomy & histology/classification/physiology
;
Mandible/anatomy & histology
;
Paleodontology
;
Paleontology
;
Phylogeny
;
Ribs/anatomy & histology
;
Skull/anatomy & histology
;
Spine/anatomy & histology
;
Swimming
;
Tail/anatomy & histology
;
Water
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
