http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammal
Those stages were characterized by:
gradual development of a bony secondary palate.
Progress was made towards an erect limb posture, which would increase the animals' stamina by avoiding Carrier's constraint. But this process was slow and erratic: for example, all herbivorous nonmammaliaform therapsids retained sprawling limbs (some late forms may have had semierect hind limbs); Permian carnivorous therapsids had sprawling forelimbs, and some late Permian ones also had semisprawling hindlimbs. In fact, modern monotremes still have semisprawling limbs.
The dentary gradually became the main bone of the lower jaw and, in the Triassic, progressed towards the fully mammalian jaw (the lower consisting only of the dentary) and middle ear (which is constructed by the bones that were previously used to construct the jaws of reptiles).
Nonmammalian synapsids are sometimes called "mammal-like reptiles".
Those stages were characterized by:
gradual development of a bony secondary palate.
Progress was made towards an erect limb posture, which would increase the animals' stamina by avoiding Carrier's constraint. But this process was slow and erratic: for example, all herbivorous nonmammaliaform therapsids retained sprawling limbs (some late forms may have had semierect hind limbs); Permian carnivorous therapsids had sprawling forelimbs, and some late Permian ones also had semisprawling hindlimbs. In fact, modern monotremes still have semisprawling limbs.
The dentary gradually became the main bone of the lower jaw and, in the Triassic, progressed towards the fully mammalian jaw (the lower consisting only of the dentary) and middle ear (which is constructed by the bones that were previously used to construct the jaws of reptiles).
Nonmammalian synapsids are sometimes called "mammal-like reptiles".
No comments:
Post a Comment