A review of monotreme (Monotremata) evolution

Flannery, Timothy F.; Rich, Thomas H.; Vickers-Rich, Patricia; Ziegler, Tim; Veatch, E. Grace; Helgen, Kristofer M.

doi:10.1080/03115518.2022.2025900

Cited by 17 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 92 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The new discovery expands the list of mammals documented in the Chorrillo and equivalent Dorotea formations of southern South America, adding the Monotremata to the assemblage of non-therian mammals (i.e., gondwanatherians and meridiolestidan dryolestoids [9][10][11]13 ). Remarkably, monotremes are absent from the extensively sampled Late Cretaceous localities of northern and central Patagonia 2,29,30 . Such a difference among mammalian assemblages characteristic of Patagonia is consistent with the uneven distribution of non-avian dinosaurs in this region.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Australia has yielded the most complete fossil record of monotremes 2 , including an array of Barremian through Cenomanian taxa, as well as several species of the Oligocene-Pliocene monotreme Obdurodon. In this context, the presence of the toothed monotreme Monotrematum in the early Paleocene of Patagonia 1,22 was interpreted as the result of a single dispersal of monotremes from Australia to South America, before or during the Late Cretaceous or early Paleocene 2-6 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…T he fossil record and extant distribution of monotremes is almost restricted to Australasia, with the single exception of a fossil ornithorhynchid from the earliest Cenozoic in Patagonia 1 . In this context, occurrence of a monotreme in Patagonia was interpreted as the result of a single dispersal from Australia to South America, before or during the Late Cretaceous or early Paleocene [2][3][4][5][6] .…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

First monotreme from the Late Cretaceous of South America

et al. 2023

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Monotremata is a clade of egg-lying mammals, represented by the living platypus and echidnas, which is endemic to Australia, and adjacent islands. Occurrence of basal monotremes in the Early Cretaceous of Australia has led to the consensus that this clade originated on that continent, arriving later to South America. Here we report on the discovery of a Late Cretaceous monotreme from southern Argentina, demonstrating that monotremes were present in circumpolar regions by the end of the Mesozoic, and that their distinctive anatomical features were probably present in these ancient forms as well.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

First monotreme from the Late Cretaceous of South America

et al. 2023

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Monotremes are egg-laying mammals that diverged long before marsupial and placental mammals and are as close as we can get to the earliest mammals today. Marsupials are more derived, but their brains have retained more ancestral features compared to placental mammals (Ashwell, 2010;Álvarez-Carretero et al, 2022;Flannery et al, 2022;Kverková et al, 2022). Studies on these neurocognitively distinct groups would substantially support our understanding of the timing of the emergence of GGF in mammals, or to show that it might have even evolved before mammals.…”

Section: The Evolution Of Gaze Followingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gaze following: A socio-cognitive skill rooted in deep time

2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Social gaze has received much attention in social cognition research in both human and non-human animals. Gaze following appears to be a central skill for acquiring social information, such as the location of food and predators, but can also draw attention to important social interactions, which in turn promotes the evolution of more complex socio-cognitive processes such as theory of mind and social learning. In the past decades, a large number of studies has been conducted in this field introducing differing methodologies. Thereby, various factors influencing the results of gaze following experiments have been identified. This review provides an overview of the advances in the study of gaze following, but also highlights some limitations within the research area. The majority of gaze following studies on animals have focused on primates and canids, which limits evolutionary interpretations to only a few and closely related evolutionary lineages. This review incorporates new insights gained from previously understudied taxa, such as fishes, reptiles, and birds, but it will also provide a brief outline of mammal studies. We propose that the foundations of gaze following emerged early in evolutionary history. Basic, reflexive co-orienting responses might have already evolved in fishes, which would explain the ubiquity of gaze following seen in the amniotes. More complex skills, such as geometrical gaze following and the ability to form social predictions based on gaze, seem to have evolved separately at least two times and appear to be correlated with growing complexity in brain anatomy such as increased numbers of brain neurons. However, more studies on different taxa in key phylogenetic positions are needed to better understand the evolutionary history of this fundamental socio-cognitive skill.

show abstract

“…Monotreme and therian mammal lineages diverged between 160 and 250 million years ago [1] and monotremes retain many plesiomorphic anatomical, reproductive and physiological traits not shared with therians. Consequently, their biology provides important insights into mammalian evolution, with the short-beaked echidna ( Tachyglossus aculeatus ) considered a particularly useful living model for proto- or baso-endothermy [2,3].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Postural, pilo-erective and evaporative thermal windows of the short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus)

Cooper

Withers

2023

Biol. Lett.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We identify for wild, free-living short-beaked echidnas ( Tachyglossus aculeatus ) a novel evaporative window, along with thermal windows, and demonstrate the insulating properties of the spines, using infrared thermography. The moist tip of their beak, with an underlying blood sinus, functions as a wet bulb globe thermometer, maximizing evaporative heat loss via an evaporative window. The ventral surface and insides of the legs are poorly insulated sites that act as postural thermal windows, while the spines provide flexible insulation (depending on piloerection). These avenues of heat exchange likely contribute to the higher-than-expected thermal tolerance of this species. Our study highlights how technological advances that allow for non-contact measurement of thermal variables allow us to better understand the physiological capacity of animals in their natural environment.

show abstract

A review of monotreme (Monotremata) evolution

Cited by 17 publications

References 92 publications

First monotreme from the Late Cretaceous of South America

First monotreme from the Late Cretaceous of South America

Gaze following: A socio-cognitive skill rooted in deep time

Postural, pilo-erective and evaporative thermal windows of the short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus)

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About