Cretaceous eutherians and Laurasian origin for placental mammals near the K/T boundary

J. R. Wible (), G. W. Rougier, M. J. Novacek and R. J. Asher
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J. R. Wible: Section of Mammals, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15206, USA
G. W. Rougier: School of Medicine, University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky 40292, USA
M. J. Novacek: American Museum of Natural History, New York, New York 10024, USA
R. J. Asher: Museum of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, UK

Nature, 2007, vol. 447, issue 7147, 1003-1006

Abstract: Our friends in the north There has been much debate about whether placental mammals started their long evolutionary journey 65 million years ago, when the dinosaurs became extinct — or if they have much deeper evolutionary roots. The characteristics of a newly discovered fossil of a 75-million-year-old mammal from Mongolia, taken together with a reanalysis of the morphology of Cretaceous mammals in general, suggest that placental mammals had an 'explosive' evolutionary origin around the time of the dinosaurs' demise. Both northern (Laurasia) and southern (Gondwana) continents have been implicated in the origin of the placentals: this work points to at origin, about 65 million years ago, in Laurasia.

Date: 2007
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DOI: 10.1038/nature05854

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