What Is a Mammal?
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Marsupials As Models for Research
CSIRO PUBLISHING Introduction www.publish.csiro.au/journals/ajz Australian Journal of Zoology, 2006, 54, 137–138 Marsupials as models for research Lynne SelwoodA,B and Graeme CoulsonA ADepartment of Zoology, The University of Melbourne, Vic. 3010, Australia. BCorresponding author. Email: [email protected] Marsupials are worth studying for their intrinsic value alone. rather than by trying to determine what happens when the They are one of the three major extant mammal types, conceptuses are implanted in the uterus, as in the mouse. The Prototheria (monotremes), Metatheria (marsupials) and Renfree and Shaw group has skilfully exploited this in the Eutheria, and have provided important information about the tammar wallaby, and provided further experimental advan- evolution of mammals. They represent the major mammalian tages by developing techniques for gonad sex reversal and group on the Australian continent, and their study makes an female reproductive tract sex reversal in the neonates important contribution to our natural heritage. Such studies (Renfree et al. 2006). Using marsupials, the development of are necessary in order to stem the further loss of marsupial the scrotum, mammary glands, pouch and processus vagi- diversity due to extinction of species. In addition, the study nalis are shown to be sexually dimorphic before the testis of marsupial species has provided new insights into old prob- differentiates, and hence are independent of testicular hor- lems, because of their value as models to study a variety of mones. These studies have been extended into the molecular totally different fields. level. The study of marsupials can be seen as an example of the Studies on life history strategies of Antechinus showed importance of basic research. -
A New Middle Eocene Protocetid Whale (Mammalia: Cetacea: Archaeoceti) and Associated Biota from Georgia Author(S): Richard C
A New Middle Eocene Protocetid Whale (Mammalia: Cetacea: Archaeoceti) and Associated Biota from Georgia Author(s): Richard C. Hulbert, Jr., Richard M. Petkewich, Gale A. Bishop, David Bukry and David P. Aleshire Source: Journal of Paleontology , Sep., 1998, Vol. 72, No. 5 (Sep., 1998), pp. 907-927 Published by: Paleontological Society Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1306667 REFERENCES Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1306667?seq=1&cid=pdf- reference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms SEPM Society for Sedimentary Geology and are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Paleontology This content downloaded from 131.204.154.192 on Thu, 08 Apr 2021 18:43:05 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms J. Paleont., 72(5), 1998, pp. 907-927 Copyright ? 1998, The Paleontological Society 0022-3360/98/0072-0907$03.00 A NEW MIDDLE EOCENE PROTOCETID WHALE (MAMMALIA: CETACEA: ARCHAEOCETI) AND ASSOCIATED BIOTA FROM GEORGIA RICHARD C. HULBERT, JR.,1 RICHARD M. PETKEWICH,"4 GALE A. -
Intervertebral and Epiphyseal Fusion in the Postnatal Ontogeny of Cetaceans and Terrestrial Mammals
J Mammal Evol DOI 10.1007/s10914-014-9256-7 ORIGINAL PAPER Intervertebral and Epiphyseal Fusion in the Postnatal Ontogeny of Cetaceans and Terrestrial Mammals Meghan M. Moran & Sunil Bajpai & J. Craig George & Robert Suydam & Sharon Usip & J. G. M. Thewissen # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014 Abstract In this paper we studied three related aspects of the Introduction ontogeny of the vertebral centrum of cetaceans and terrestrial mammals in an evolutionary context. We determined patterns The vertebral column provides support for the body and of ontogenetic fusion of the vertebral epiphyses in bowhead allows for flexibility and mobility (Gegenbaur and Bell whale (Balaena mysticetus) and beluga whale 1878;Hristovaetal.2011; Bruggeman et al. 2012). To (Delphinapterus leucas), comparing those to terrestrial mam- achieve this mobility, individual vertebrae articulate with each mals and Eocene cetaceans. We found that epiphyseal fusion other through cartilaginous intervertebral joints between the is initiated in the neck and the sacral region of terrestrial centra and synovial joints between the pre- and post- mammals, while in recent aquatic mammals epiphyseal fusion zygapophyses. The mobility of each vertebral joint varies is initiated in the neck and caudal regions, suggesting loco- greatly between species as well as along the vertebral column motor pattern and environment affect fusion pattern. We also within a single species. Vertebral column mobility greatly studied bony fusion of the sacrum and evaluated criteria used impacts locomotor style, whether the animal is terrestrial or to homologize cetacean vertebrae with the fused sacrum of aquatic. In aquatic Cetacea, buoyancy counteracts gravity, and terrestrial mammals. We found that the initial ossification of the tail is the main propulsive organ (Fish 1996;Fishetal. -
Functional Morphology of the Vertebral Column in Remingtonocetus (Mammalia, Cetacea) and the Evolution of Aquatic Locomotion in Early Archaeocetes
Functional Morphology of the Vertebral Column in Remingtonocetus (Mammalia, Cetacea) and the Evolution of Aquatic Locomotion in Early Archaeocetes by Ryan Matthew Bebej A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ecology and Evolutionary Biology) in The University of Michigan 2011 Doctoral Committee: Professor Philip D. Gingerich, Co-Chair Professor Philip Myers, Co-Chair Professor Daniel C. Fisher Professor Paul W. Webb © Ryan Matthew Bebej 2011 To my wonderful wife Melissa, for her infinite love and support ii Acknowledgments First, I would like to thank each of my committee members. I will be forever grateful to my primary mentor, Philip D. Gingerich, for providing me the opportunity of a lifetime, studying the very organisms that sparked my interest in evolution and paleontology in the first place. His encouragement, patience, instruction, and advice have been instrumental in my development as a scholar, and his dedication to his craft has instilled in me the importance of doing careful and solid research. I am extremely grateful to Philip Myers, who graciously consented to be my co-advisor and co-chair early in my career and guided me through some of the most stressful aspects of life as a Ph.D. student (e.g., preliminary examinations). I also thank Paul W. Webb, for his novel thoughts about living in and moving through water, and Daniel C. Fisher, for his insights into functional morphology, 3D modeling, and mammalian paleobiology. My research was almost entirely predicated on cetacean fossils collected through a collaboration of the University of Michigan and the Geological Survey of Pakistan before my arrival in Ann Arbor. -
Supplementary Material
Adaptation of mammalian myosin II sequences to body mass Mark N Wass*1, Sarah T Jeanfavre*1,2, Michael P Coghlan*1, Martin Ridout#, Anthony J Baines*3 and Michael A Geeves*3 School of Biosciences*, and School of Mathematics#, Statistics and Actuarial Science, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK 1. Equal contribution 2. Current address: Broad Institute, 415 Main Street, 7029-K, Cambridge MA 02142 3. Joint corresponding authors Key words: selection, muscle contraction, mammalian physiology, heart rate Address for correspondence: Prof M.A.Geeves School of Biosciences, University of Kent, Canterbury CT1 7NJ UK [email protected] tel 44 1227827597 Dr A J Baines School of Biosciences, University of Kent, Canterbury CT1 7NJ UK [email protected] tel 44 1227 823462 SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL Supplementary Table 1. Source of Myosin sequences and the mass of each species used in the analysis of Fig 1 & 2 Species Isoform Mass Skeletal Skeletal Embryonic Skeletal α- β-cardiac Perinatal Non- Non- Smooth Extraocular Slow (kg) 2d/x 2a 2b cardiac muscle A muscle B Muscle Tonic Human P12882 Q9UKX2 251757455 Q9Y623 P13533 P12883 P13535 P35579 219841954 13432177 110624781 599045671 68a Bonobo 675746236 397494570 675746242 675746226 397473260 397473262 675746209 675764569 675746138 675746206 675798456 45.5a Macaque 544497116 544497114 544497126 109113269 544446347 544446351 544497122 383408157 384940798 387541766 544497107 544465262 6.55b Tarsier 640786419 640786435 640786417 640818214 640818212 640786413 640796733 640805785 640786411 640822915 0.1315c -
Transition of Eocene Whales from Land to Sea: Evidence from Bone Microstructure
RESEARCH ARTICLE Transition of Eocene Whales from Land to Sea: Evidence from Bone Microstructure Alexandra Houssaye1,2*, Paul Tafforeau3, Christian de Muizon4, Philip D. Gingerich5 1 UMR 7179 CNRS/Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Département Ecologie et Gestion de la Biodiversité, Paris, France, 2 Steinmann Institut für Geologie, Paläontologie und Mineralogie, Universität Bonn, Bonn, Germany, 3 European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Grenoble, France, 4 Sorbonne Universités, CR2P—CNRS, MNHN, UPMC-Paris 6, Département Histoire de la Terre, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France, 5 Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Museum of Paleontology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America a11111 * [email protected] Abstract Cetacea are secondarily aquatic amniotes that underwent their land-to-sea transition during OPEN ACCESS the Eocene. Primitive forms, called archaeocetes, include five families with distinct degrees Citation: Houssaye A, Tafforeau P, de Muizon C, of adaptation to an aquatic life, swimming mode and abilities that remain difficult to estimate. Gingerich PD (2015) Transition of Eocene Whales The lifestyle of early cetaceans is investigated by analysis of microanatomical features in from Land to Sea: Evidence from Bone postcranial elements of archaeocetes. We document the internal structure of long bones, Microstructure. PLoS ONE 10(2): e0118409. ribs and vertebrae in fifteen specimens belonging to the three more derived archaeocete doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0118409 families — Remingtonocetidae, Protocetidae, and Basilosauridae — using microtomogra- Academic Editor: Brian Lee Beatty, New York phy and virtual thin-sectioning. This enables us to discuss the osseous specializations ob- Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine, UNITED STATES served in these taxa and to comment on their possible swimming behavior. -
Evolutionary History of Carnivora (Mammalia, Laurasiatheria) Inferred
bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.10.05.326090; this version posted October 5, 2020. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder. This article is a US Government work. It is not subject to copyright under 17 USC 105 and is also made available for use under a CC0 license. 1 Manuscript for review in PLOS One 2 3 Evolutionary history of Carnivora (Mammalia, Laurasiatheria) inferred 4 from mitochondrial genomes 5 6 Alexandre Hassanin1*, Géraldine Véron1, Anne Ropiquet2, Bettine Jansen van Vuuren3, 7 Alexis Lécu4, Steven M. Goodman5, Jibran Haider1,6,7, Trung Thanh Nguyen1 8 9 1 Institut de Systématique, Évolution, Biodiversité (ISYEB), Sorbonne Université, 10 MNHN, CNRS, EPHE, UA, Paris. 11 12 2 Department of Natural Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology, Middlesex University, 13 United Kingdom. 14 15 3 Centre for Ecological Genomics and Wildlife Conservation, Department of Zoology, 16 University of Johannesburg, South Africa. 17 18 4 Parc zoologique de Paris, Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris. 19 20 5 Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, IL, USA. 21 22 6 Department of Wildlife Management, Pir Mehr Ali Shah, Arid Agriculture University 23 Rawalpindi, Pakistan. 24 25 7 Forest Parks & Wildlife Department Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan. 26 27 28 * Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.10.05.326090; this version posted October 5, 2020. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder. This article is a US Government work. -
Mammals at Woodland Park Zoo Pre-Visit Information
Mammals at Woodland Park Zoo Pre-visit Information If you are planning a zoo field trip and wish to have your students focus on mammals during their visit, this pre- visit sheet can help them get the most out of their time at the zoo. We have put together an overview of key concepts related to mammals, a list of basic vocabulary words, and a checklist of mammal species at Woodland Park Zoo. Knowledge and understanding of these main ideas will enhance your students’ zoo visit. OVERVIEW: There are over 5,000 species of mammals currently identified worldwide, inhabiting a number of different biomes and exhibiting a range of adaptations. Woodland Park Zoo exhibits a wide variety of mammal species (see attached checklist) in several different areas of the zoo. A mammal field trip to the zoo could focus on the characteristics of mammals (see “Concepts” below), comparing/contrasting different mammals or learning about biomes and observing the physical characteristics of mammals in different biomes. CONCEPTS: Mammals share the following physical characteristics: • Fur or hair • Endothermic, often called warm-blooded. Endothermic animals maintain a constant internal body temperature rather than adjusting to the temperature of their surroundings as ectothermic animals (such as reptiles and amphibians) do. • Mammary glands, which are used to feed milk to young Mammals, like all plants and animals, have five basic needs to survive—food, water, shelter, air and space. They inhabit every continent on the planet and range in size from Kitti’s hog-nosed bat (also called bumblebee bat) at 0.07 ounces (2 grams) to the blue whale at 100 tons (approximately 90,000 kilograms). -
Evolution of Nervous Systems and Brains 2
Evolution of Nervous Systems and Brains 2 Gerhard Roth and Ursula Dicke The modern theory of biological evolution, as estab- drift”) is incomplete; they point to a number of other lished by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace and perhaps equally important mechanisms such as in the middle of the nineteenth century, is based on (i) neutral gene evolution without natural selection, three interrelated facts: (i) phylogeny – the common (ii) mass extinctions wiping out up to 90 % of existing history of organisms on earth stretching back over 3.5 species (such as the Cambrian, Devonian, Permian, and billion years, (ii) evolution in a narrow sense – Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinctions) and (iii) genetic modi fi cations of organisms during phylogeny and and epigenetic-developmental (“ evo - devo ”) self-canal- underlying mechanisms, and (iii) speciation – the ization of evolutionary processes [ 2 ] . It remains uncer- process by which new species arise during phylogeny. tain as to which of these possible processes principally Regarding the phylogeny, it is now commonly accepted drive the evolution of nervous systems and brains. that all organisms on Earth are derived from a com- mon ancestor or an ancestral gene pool, while contro- versies have remained since the time of Darwin and 2.1 Reconstruction of the Evolution Wallace about the major mechanisms underlying the of Nervous Systems and Brains observed modi fi cations during phylogeny (cf . [1 ] ). The prevalent view of neodarwinism (or better In most cases, the reconstruction of the evolution of “new” or “modern evolutionary synthesis”) is charac- nervous systems and brains cannot be based on fossil- terized by the assumption that evolutionary changes ized material, since their soft tissues decompose, but are caused by a combination of two major processes, has to make use of the distribution of neural traits in (i) heritable variation of individual genomes within a extant species. -
Eutheria (Placental Mammals)
Eutheria (Placental Introductory article Mammals) Article Contents . Introduction J David Archibald, San Diego State University, San Diego, California, USA . Basic Design . Taxonomic and Ecological Diversity Eutheria includes one of three major clades of mammals, the extant members of which are . Fossil History and Distribution referred to as placentals. Phylogeny Introduction have supernumerary teeth (e.g. some whales, armadillos, Eutheria (or Placentalia) is the most taxonomically diverse etc.), in extant placentals the number of teeth is at most of three branches or clades of mammals, the other two three upper and lower incisors, one upper and lower being Metatheria (or Marsupialia) and Prototheria (or canine, four upper and lower premolars, and three upper Monotremata). When named by Gill in 1872, Eutheria and lower molars. Except for one fewer upper molar, a included both marsupials and placentals. It was Huxley in domestic dog retains this pattern. Compared to reptiles, 1880 that recognized Eutheria basically as used today to mammals have fewer skull bones through fusion and loss, include only placentals. McKenna and Bell in their although bones are variously emphasized in each of the Classification of Mammals, published in 1997, chose to three major mammalian taxa. use Placentalia rather than Eutheria to avoid the confusion Physiologically, mammals are all endotherms of varying of what taxa should be included in Eutheria. Others such as degrees of efficiency. They are also homeothermic with a Rougier have used Eutheria and Placentalia in the sense relatively high resting temperature. These characteristics used here. Placentalia includes all extant placentals and are also found in birds, but because of anatomical their most recent common ancestor. -
Speciation Network in Laurasiatheria: Retrophylogenomic Signals
Downloaded from genome.cshlp.org on June 1, 2017 - Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press Research Speciation network in Laurasiatheria: retrophylogenomic signals Liliya Doronina,1 Gennady Churakov,1,2,5 Andrej Kuritzin,3 Jingjing Shi,1 Robert Baertsch,4 Hiram Clawson,4 and Jürgen Schmitz1,5 1Institute of Experimental Pathology, ZMBE, University of Münster, 48149 Münster, Germany; 2Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity, University of Münster, 48149 Münster, Germany; 3Department of System Analysis, Saint Petersburg State Institute of Technology, 190013 St. Petersburg, Russia; 4Department of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz, California 95064, USA Rapid species radiation due to adaptive changes or occupation of new ecospaces challenges our understanding of ancestral speciation and the relationships of modern species. At the molecular level, rapid radiation with successive speciations over short time periods—too short to fix polymorphic alleles—is described as incomplete lineage sorting. Incomplete lineage sorting leads to random fixation of genetic markers and hence, random signals of relationships in phylogenetic reconstruc- tions. The situation is further complicated when you consider that the genome is a mosaic of ancestral and modern incom- pletely sorted sequence blocks that leads to reconstructed affiliations to one or the other relative, depending on the fixation of their shared ancestral polymorphic alleles. The laurasiatherian relationships among Chiroptera, Perissodactyla, Cetartiodactyla, and Carnivora present a prime example for such enigmatic affiliations. We performed whole-genome screenings for phylogenetically diagnostic retrotransposon insertions involving the representatives bat (Chiroptera), horse (Perissodactyla), cow (Cetartiodactyla), and dog (Carnivora), and extracted among 162,000 preselected cases 102 virtually homoplasy-free, phylogenetically informative retroelements to draw a complete picture of the highly complex evolutionary relations within Laurasiatheria. -
Arms Race of Temporal Partitioning Between Carnivorous And
www.nature.com/scientificreports OPEN Arms race of temporal partitioning between carnivorous and herbivorous mammals Received: 26 October 2017 Yonghua Wu1,2, Haifeng Wang3, Haitao Wang4 & Jiang Feng2,5 Accepted: 12 January 2018 Reciprocal coevolutionary changes in predation and anti-predator behaviours have long been Published: xx xx xxxx hypothesized, but evolutionary-scale evidence is rare. Here, we reconstructed the evolutionary-scale changes in the diel activity patterns of a predator-prey system (carnivorous and herbivorous mammals) based on a molecular phyloecological approach, providing evidence of long-term antagonistic coevolutionary changes in their diel activities. Our molecular reconstruction of diel activity patterns, which is supported by morphological evidence, consistently showed that carnivorous mammals were subjected to a shift from diurnality to nocturnality, while herbivorous mammals experienced a shift from nocturnality to diurnality during their evolutionary histories. A shift in the diel activity of the herbivores as a result of carnivore avoidance is hypothesized based on molecular, morphological and behavioural evidence, and our results suggest an evolutionary-scale arms race of diel activity shifts between carnivorous and herbivorous mammals. Interactions between carnivorous and herbivorous mammals, representing one of the classic coevolutionary sys- tems, lead to long-term reciprocal evolutionary changes in predation and anti-predator behaviours1. Among carnivorous mammals, felids (Felidae) and canids (Canidae) are the main predators of herbivorous mammals (e.g., ungulates)2. Tese carnivores (felids and canids) and ungulates show diferentiated diel activity patterns, with most felids and canids being mainly nocturnal, while ungulates are primarily diurnal3,4. Given the difer- entiation of their diel activity patterns, one possibility is that the diurnality of ungulates may have evolved as an anti-predator behaviour.