A Face and Age for Early Mammalian Ancestor (1 of 3) (IMAGE)

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

A Face and Age for Early Mammalian Ancestor (1 of 3)

Caption

An artist’s rendering of the hypothetical placental ancestor, a small, insect-eating animal. The research team reconstructed the anatomy of the animal by mapping traits onto the evolutionary tree most strongly supported by the combined phenomic and genomic data and comparing the features in placental mammals with those seen in their closest relatives. This image relates to a paper that appeared in the Feb. 8, 2013, issue of Science, published by AAAS. The paper, by Maureen A. O’Leary at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, NY, and colleagues was titled, “The Placental Mammal Ancestor and the Post–K-Pg Radiation of Placentals.”

Credit

[Image courtesy of Carl Buell]

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