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Palaeontology

Fresh light on southern early mammals

Nature volume 479, pages 51–52 (2011)Cite this article

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Little is known about mammalian evolution in South America during the age of the dinosaurs. The discovery of 100-million-year-old skulls confirms that mammalian faunas were endemic in southern continents at this time. See Letter p.98

Mammalian remains from the age of the dinosaurs — the Mesozoic era, from 250 million years (Myr) to 65 Myr ago — are rare. Ten times fewer mammalian genera have been identified from the Mesozoic than from the age of mammals that followed it (the Cenozoic era, from roughly 65.5 Myr ago to the present), even though the Cenozoic has lasted less than half the time. Furthermore, Mesozoic mammals are most often known from isolated teeth or partial jaws; complete skulls and/or skeletons are exceptional. Our knowledge of the first two-thirds of mammalian evolution, which extends from the first record of a mammal about 220 Myr ago to the end of the Cretaceous period 65.5 Myr ago, is therefore terribly incomplete.

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Figure 1: South American mammals from the early Late Cretaceous.

G. W. ROUGIER

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  1. Département Histoire de la Terre, Christian de Muizon is in UMR 7207 CR2P (CNRS-MNHN-UPMC), Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris 75005, France.,

    Christian de Muizon

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Correspondence to Christian de Muizon.

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de Muizon, C. Fresh light on southern early mammals. Nature 479, 51–52 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/479051a

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