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The evolution of the digestive system has formed a significant influence in mammal evolution. With the emergence of mammals, the digestive system was modified in a variety of ways depending on the animal's diet. For example, cats and most carnivores have simple large intestines, while the horse as a herbivore has a voluminous large intestine. [127]
Ceratopsian dinosaurs appear in the fossil record and the oldest known eutherian mammal: Juramaia. 160 Ma Multituberculate mammals (genus Rugosodon) appear in eastern China. 155 Ma First blood-sucking insects (ceratopogonids), rudist bivalves, and cheilostome bryozoans.
Plesiadapis is one of the oldest known primate-like mammal genera which existed about 58–55 million years ago in North America and Europe. [2] [3] Plesiadapis means "near-Adapis", which is a reference to the adapiform primate of the Eocene period, Adapis.
Like the strepsirrhine adapiforms, omomyids were diverse and ranged throughout Eurasia and North America. The phylogeny of omomyids, tarsiers, and simians is currently unknown. For many years, it was assumed that primates had first evolved in Africa, and this assumption and the excavations that resulted from it yielded many early simian fossils ...
“For over 100 million years when dinosaurs were the dominant predators, mammals were generally small, nocturnal, and short-lived.” The pressure to stay alive eliminated the genes needed for ...
The Mesozoic era followed and the dinosaurs began their rise to dominance, spreading into the country before Pangaea split up. During the latter Jurassic Morrison Formation dinosaurs lived in the western states. During the Cretaceous, the Gulf of Mexico expanded until it split North America in half. Plesiosaurs and mosasaurs swam in its waters.
Fossils from a newly discovered species of mammal in Colorado may offer clues into how life rebounded after Earth’s last mass extinction that killed off the dinosaurs, researchers say.
The two oldest-known fossil skeletons of bats, unearthed in southwestern Wyoming and dating to at least 52 million years ago, are providing insight into the early evolution of these flying mammals ...