![]() In their time and place, these mammals were anything but obsolete” (p. Simultaneously, it does not behove us to call these now-extinct groups evolutionary dead ends. ![]() Natural selection doesn’t plan for the future” (p. they were not evolving to become mammals. “ ammals were a still unrealized concept, which evolution had yet to assemble. However, the above must not be mistaken for a linear march of progress. 13) therapsids with the first hairs and a new form of metabolism, endothermy the cynodonts, some of whom miniaturized while the dinosaurs became giants the mammaliaformes who developed a new jaw joint the docodonts and gliding haramiyidans who had fur the multituberculates who had increasingly complex teeth and the therians who gave rise to today’s placentals, marsupials, and monotremes. Over the course of some 100 million years, a parade of lineages evolved-archaic mammals all-piecemeal developing the traits we recognize as mammalian today: pelycosaurs with canine teeth, the first “ whispers of a dental revolution” (p. Mammals shared our planet with the dinosaurs throughout their long reign, from the initial split of our amniote common ancestor into synapsids (us) and diapsids (them), to their extinction at the end of the Cretaceous. The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us, written by Steve Brusatte, published in Europe by Picador in June 2022 (hardback, 500 pages) ![]()
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