Publication Date:
1997-02-21
Description:
The extent of terrestrial vertebrate extinctions at the end of the Cretaceous is poorly understood, and estimates have ranged from a mass extinction to limited extinctions of specific groups. Molecular and paleontological data demonstrate that modern bird orders started diverging in the Early Cretaceous; at least 22 avian lineages of modern birds cross the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary. Data for several other terrestrial vertebrate groups indicate a similar pattern of survival and, taken together, favor incremental changes during a Cretaceous diversification of birds and mammals rather than an explosive radiation in the Early Tertiary.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Cooper, A -- Penny, D -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 1997 Feb 21;275(5303):1109-13.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉School of Biological Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand. alan.cooper@bioanth.ox.ac.uk〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9027308" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
Base Sequence
;
*Biological Evolution
;
*Birds/genetics
;
Evolution, Molecular
;
*Fossils
;
*Genes
;
Genes, mos
;
Mammals/genetics
;
Mitochondria/genetics
;
Molecular Sequence Data
;
Phylogeny
;
RNA, Ribosomal/genetics
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
