Lecture 20
What is a mammals
- All mammals share
o Hair (modified for hooves and horns)
o Three bones in inner ear
o Milk produced from modified sweat glands
- 3 main groups
o Monotremes
o Marsupials- pouched
o Placental mammals (humans)
- Placental species
o 5000 species
o 26 orders
- Shrews and bats can weigh up to 2g
- Blue whale
o Largest animal ever
o 160000 kg
- Cover the whole plant except inland Antarctica, the deepest parts of the ocean and
highest peaks
Mammal time tree
- All placental orders except primates and Xenarthra diversified after end-cretaceous
mass extinction
- Plenty going on in Jurassic, but those forms went extinct
Monotrememes
- Effs
- First beasts
- Five extant species- platypus and 4 species of echidna
- Restricted to Australia and new guinea
-
Marsupials
- Pounches
- Mid beasts
Placentals
- True beasts
Hair
- Connected to keratin produced
- Other animals seed it to make scales and feathers
Milk
- Cows
- Cats
- Platypus
- Some have nipples some don’t
Mammalian ear
- 3 bones in inner ear
- Malleus
- Incus
- Stapes
- Gills arches migrated forward to make jaws
- Skull and throat changed
- Gills were no longer needed
- Bone behind the jaw is now for the ear
o Pick up vibrations in the jaw and transmits them to the inner ear in reptiles
- Mammals evolved had a jaw
o Mammals have a jaw of one bone
o It evolved into the 3 inner ear bones
Marsupials
- Originated in South America
- Spread to Australia via Antarctica and to North America and Europe
- Became extinct in North America 20 M yrs ago
- 353 species, 98 species in America
- 1 species in North America
- All large carnivorous marsupials in South America disappear
- Wallace’s line (marsupials cannot cross it)
- Slightly different arrangement
o Sperm enters via lateral vaginas
Embryo descends through middle vagina
o Scrotum is above penis
Virginia possum
- 1 species in USA
- 102 species in South America
- 13 nipples
o Arranged in a circle with one in the middle
- Mother carries them on top of her
- Possums are different
o 70 marsupial species in Australia
o Spilt from Opossums
Gollum Opossum
- Semi aquatic
- Males put their genitalia in a pouch while swimming
What are most mammals
- Rodents > 2000 species
- Only 5000 species in total
- Bats- 1240 species (around 25%)
- Next are hedgehogs, tenrecs, and shrews
- Then comes humans
- Why so many species
o Bats
Small
High reproductive rate
Linked with plants or insects liked with plants
Rodents
- Synapomorphies
o Single pair of continuously growing incisors
o No canines
o Trough like mandibular fossa (fossa means gap)
Where temporal bone articulates with lower jaw
o Rabbits and shrews are not rodents
o At least 54 species have gone extinct in last 200 years
o 80 are critically endangered ( <250 individuals)
Bats
- Global distribution
o 4th phylum to gain powered flight
o 1st insects, pterosaurs, birds then bats
- Light slender skeleton
o Wings are homologous to hands
- Wings extend to hind leaves
o More manoeuvrability
- Radiation within few M yrs of pterosaur extinction
o Rapid evolution of wings or already present
o Last common ancestor around 65 M yrs ago
- Megachiroptera
o Mega bats
o Flying foxes
o Eat fruit or nectar
- Microchiroptera
o Microbats
o Largely insectivores
o Echolocating (50 M yrs ago)
- Bat wings covered with small bumps called Merkel cells that contain touch sensitive
receptors, and which help in flight
Echolocation
- Case of convergent evolution
- Same genes are involved each time
o Genes linked to hearing/deafness and vision
Sperm and competition in flying foxes
- Male-male competition for females
- Produce more sperm to drive out competitor sperm
- Large testes in species with male-male competition
o Possibility of female promiscuity
- Sperm competition widely studied in behavioural ecology
Primates
- >360 species extant
- Appeared 65 M yrs ago
- Strepsirrhini
o Non-tarsier prosimians
Wet nose, median grooves in nose, shiny eyes
- Haplorhini
o Tarsiers
o Simians
o Dry nose, broad nostril arrows at top
- Simians
o Catarrhini
Apes and old-world monkeys
o Platyrrhini
New world monkeys
- New species still being discovered
- Mainly linked to tropical rainforests
- Africa and Central America
- Madagascar
Madagascar
- 100 species of lemur
- All endemic to Madagascar, fill niches
- No haplorhini on Madagascar
- Island separated from Africa then Antarctica then India
- 60 M yrs ago primates went there by chance
- All lemurs descended from this event
o Mongoose- like carnivores (15 M yrs)
12 species including car like fosa
Megafaunal extinction
- They are birds
- Low extinction numbers in Africa
o They are co evolved
