Epipubic bones in eutherian mammals from the Late Cretaceous of Mongolia

Michael J. Novacek (), Guillermo W. Rougier, John R. Wible, Malcolm C. McKenna, Demberelyin Dashzeveg and Inés Horovitz
Additional contact information
Michael J. Novacek: American Museum of Natural History
Guillermo W. Rougier: American Museum of Natural History
John R. Wible: School of Medicine, University of Louisville
Malcolm C. McKenna: American Museum of Natural History
Demberelyin Dashzeveg: Geological Institute, Mongolian Academy of Sciences
Inés Horovitz: American Museum of Natural History

Nature, 1997, vol. 389, issue 6650, 483-486

Abstract: Abstract An important transformation in the evolution of mammals was the loss of the epipubic bones. These are elements projecting anteriorly from the pelvic girdle into the abdominal region in a variety of Mesozoic mammals, related tritylodonts, marsupials and monotremes but not in living eutherian (placental) mammals1,2,3. Here we describe a new eutherian from the Late Cretaceous period of Mongolia, and report the first record of epipubic bones in two distinct eutherian lineages. The presence of epipubic bones and other primitive features suggests that these groups occupy a basal position in the Eutheria. It has been argued that the epipubic bones support the pouch in living mammals1,3,4, but epipubic bones have since been related to locomotion and suspension of the litter mass of several attached, lactating offspring5. The loss of the epipubic bones in eutherians can be related to the evolution of prolonged gestation, which would not require prolonged external attachment of altricial young. Thus the occurrence of epipubic bones in two Cretaceous eutherians suggests that the dramatic modifications connected with typical placental reproduction3,6,7 may have been later events in the evolution of the Eutheria.

Date: 1997
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/39020 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:389:y:1997:i:6650:d:10.1038_39020

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/39020

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().