The earliest known eutherian mammal

Qiang Ji, Zhe-Xi Luo (), Chong-Xi Yuan, John R. Wible, Jian-Ping Zhang and Justin A. Georgi
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Qiang Ji: Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences
Zhe-Xi Luo: Carnegie Museum of Natural History
Chong-Xi Yuan: Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences
John R. Wible: Carnegie Museum of Natural History
Jian-Ping Zhang: Geoscience University of China
Justin A. Georgi: Carnegie Museum of Natural History

Nature, 2002, vol. 416, issue 6883, 816-822

Abstract: Abstract The skeleton of a eutherian (placental) mammal has been discovered from the Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation of northeastern China. We estimate its age to be about 125 million years (Myr), extending the date of the oldest eutherian records with skull and skeleton by about 40–50 Myr. Our analyses place the new fossil at the root of the eutherian tree and among the four other known Early Cretaceous eutherians, and suggest an earlier and greater diversification of stem eutherians that occurred well before the molecular estimate for the diversification of extant placental superorders (104–64 Myr). The new eutherian has limb and foot features that are known only from scansorial (climbing) and arboreal (tree-living) extant mammals, in contrast to the terrestrial or cursorial (running) features of other Cretaceous eutherians. This suggests that the earliest eutherian lineages developed different locomotory adaptations, facilitating their spread to diverse niches in the Cretaceous.

Date: 2002
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DOI: 10.1038/416816a

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