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Topic: Fossil Monotremes

	Monotreme
		Monotremes are mammalss that are best known for laying eggs, instead of giving birth to live young like marsupialss and placental mammals (eutheria).
		Monotremes were very poorly understood for many years, and to this day some of the 19th century myths that grew up around them endure, particularly in the northern hemisphere.
		Fossil forms and modern platypus young have the "tribosphenic" (three-cusped) molarss which are one of the hallmarks of mammals.
	www.teachersparadise.com /ency/en/wikipedia/m/mo/monotreme.html (668 words)

	Read about Monotreme at WorldVillage Encyclopedia. Research Monotreme and learn about Monotreme here! (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-22)
		Monotreme means 'single opening' in Greek, and comes from the fact that their urinary, excretory, and reproductive systems all open into a single duct, the cloaca.
		Monotremes retain a reptile-like gait, with legs that are on the sides of rather than underneath the body.
		Their metabolic rate is remarkably low by mammalian standards, although the extent to which this is a characteristic of monotremes, as opposed to an adaptation on the part of the small number of surviving species to harsh environmental conditions, is uncertain.
	encyclopedia.worldvillage.com /s/b/Monotreme (811 words)

	Mammals - Monotreme (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-22)
		Monotreme, a member of the mammalian order Monotremata, an order of primitive, egg-laying mammals that includes the platypus and two species of spiny anteaters.
		The three living monotremes are the platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus), one of the most remarkable of all mammals with its ducklike "bill," webbed feet, and a flattened beaverlike tail, and the echidnas, or spiny anteaters (Tachyglossus aculeatus and Zaglossus bruijni), which have sharp-pointed spines and tubelike noses.
		Little is known of their ancestry; the earliest fossil monotremes found in Australia are only about 2,000,000 years old and differ little from contemporary species.
	www.fdtsnk.org /echidna/monotreme.html (512 words)

	Monotreme biography .ms (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-22)
		Like other mammals, monotremes are warm-blooded with high metabolic rates (though not as high as other mammals, see below); have hair on their bodies; produce milk to feed their young; have a single bone in their lower jaw; and have three inner ear bones.
		Fossil forms and modern Platypus young have the "tribosphenic" (three-cusped) molars which are one of the hallmarks of mammals.
		Fossils of a jaw fragment 110 million years old were found at Lightning Ridge, New South Wales.
	monotreme.biography.ms (753 words)

	Following is the monotreme file, as mentioned by Kathleen Hunt. Subject: Monotremes and th
		Introduction -- What are monotremes Reptile-like and mammal-like features of monotremes Where do they fit in the evolution of mammals Introduction -- What are monotremes Monotremes are egg-laying mammals found in Australia and on the island of New Guinea (politically Papua-New Guinea in the east and the Indonesian province of Irian Jaya in the west).
		While the laying of eggs by the monotremes is the best-known and most obvious similarity that they have to the reptiles, there are a number of other similarities, which will be examined in the next section.
		One feature of monotremes which I don't know where it fits is the mechanism for sex determination: "The male is heterogametic, that is, he produces two kinds of sperm, as humans do, one with a Y chromosome and the other with an X chromosome...
	www.skepticfiles.org /evolut/monotrem.htm (1105 words)

	Platypus
		The fossil record for monotremes is poor in comparison to that of other groups of mammals, and until recently little was known about their evolutionary history.
		Several fossil discoveries since the early 1970s have shed some light on the origins of monotremes: we now know that Platypus-like creatures were present in Australia during the Mesozoic Era, when Australia was still part of the supercontinent, Gondwana.
		The fossil evidence suggests that monotremes originated and diversified in the Australian/Antarctic section of Gondwana, and that there was only a single dispersal to South America before the break up of Gondwana.
	pandora.nla.gov.au /pan/33537/20030212/www.amonline.net.au/factsheets/platypus.htm (354 words)

	[No title] (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-22)
		The fossil record of monotremes is greatly unknown, beyond the Miocene epoch 15 million years ago.
		Modern monotremes lack permanent teeth, but fossil montremes from the Miocene have teeth which can be compared to fossil teeth found much earlier, giving scientists clues to which Mesozoic mammal group monotremes are most closely related to.
		Monotremes are most famous for laying eggs, but they also lack nipples, milk is "leaked" out of the skin, and lapped up by the young.
	paleo.amnh.org /bjburger/fossilmammal/mo1.html (194 words)

	OZ fossils - The Age of Reptiles - The Fauna - The Mammals
		Monotremes are different from other kinds of mammals because they lay eggs.
		Monotremes are considered an even older type of mammal that originated in Australia.
		The 115-million-year-old fossil is the jawbone of a mammal that resembled a shrew, as did many early mammals.
	www.abc.net.au /ozfossil/ageofreptiles/fauna/mammals.htm (1298 words)

	Main Page
		Marsupials, multituberculates, and monotremes all have an epipubic bone.
		The study of fossil rodents is very insightful to paleontologists who are interested in climatic and evolutionary patterns from the last 5 million years, because they are so common in recent cave deposits.
		Fossil armadillos got very large, and their fossils are common in Florida.
	www.sinc.sunysb.edu /Stu/bburger/MainPage.html (4371 words)

	Monotreme : Monotremes
		Monotremes are mammals that are best known for laying eggs, instead of giving birth to live young like marsupials and placental mammals (eutheria).
		As in all true mammals, the tiny bones that conduct sound to the inner ear are fully incorporated into the skull, rather than lying in the jaw as in cynodonts and other pre-mammalian synapsids.
		Their metabolic rate is remarkably low by mammalian standards, alhough the extent to which this is a characteristic of monotremes, as opposed to an adaptation on the part of the small number of surviving species to harsh environmental conditions, is uncertain.
	www.fastload.org /mo/Monotremes.html (678 words)

	Australian Marsupials (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-22)
		Both marsupials and monotremes have an epipubic bone, known as the “marsupium.” It was thought that this pelvic bone was meant to aid in the supporting of a pouch, but this may not be true as it is equally developed in both sexes.
		It was thought that marsupials could have been the descendants of monotremes, but the connection is not a strong one, so this remains undetermined.
		Unlike monotremes and marsupials, placentals have a placenta in which to nourish the unborn fetus.
	amberm.bol.ucla.edu /amber.htm (1517 words)

	Re: Were the protomammals from the Mesozoic Era born as reptiles or mammals
		The problem with identifying mammals in the fossil record is that it is impossible to determine whether the extinct animals had mammary glands, so other criteria must be used to characterize fossilized animals as mammalian or pre-mammalian.
		If a fossil has a synapsid skull with a varied dentition, a single jaw bone, and is missing its lumbar (stomach) ribs, then it is classified as a mammal.
		If the fossil has uniquely marsupial characteristics not found in other mammals, then it is positively classifed as a marsupial, the same is true for eutheria and monotremes.
	www.madsci.org /posts/archives/may97/861045912.Ev.r.html (556 words)

	Fossil sites of Australia - Riversleigh
		Biostratigraphic implications of the fossil kangaroos at Riversleigh, northwestern Queensland.
		Fossil molluscs from the early Pliocene Bluff Downs Local Fauna with a description of a new species.
		New fossil material from Eocene, late Oligocene and Miocene deposits of Queensland and its significance in the inference of Australian marsupial carnivore evolution.
	www.austmus.gov.au /fossil_sites/publications.htm (3540 words)

	Introductory Biology Courseware (111)- Kingdom Animalia (Vertebrata) (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-22)
		Fossils 220 MY old have been found which are believed to be those of early mammals.
		Recently, a 110 year old fossil resembling that of a platypus was discovered in Australia, suggesting divergence of this group from the mainstem of mammals at least that long ago.
		Fossils of H. habilis ("handy man") are 2 MY old; many remains have been found from several locations in Africa along with tools.
	tidepool.st.usm.edu /Crswr/111vertebrates.html (3379 words)

	h19 The descent of mammals
		multituberculates The multituberculates, for which there is a good fossil record, were a diverse rodent-like group of protherians (primitive mammals) that were highly successful through the Eocene and had survived the end Mesozoic major extinction event.
		Fortunate therefore is that the commonest fossil of mammals during the Mesozoic are their teeth.
		Fossil evidence of Jurassic mammals in Pangea is little except for a group called doconodonts.
	geowords.com /histbooknetscape/h19.htm (730 words)

	Prehistoric jawbone reveals evolution repeating itself
		A 115-million-year-old fossil of a tiny egg-laying mammal thought to be related to the platypus provides compelling evidence of multiple origins of acute hearing in humans and other mammals.
		The discovery of the prehistoric jawbone, reported in the Feb. 11, 2005, issue of Science, suggests that the transformation of bones from the jaw into the small bones of the middle ear occurred at least twice in the evolutionary lines of living mammals after their split from a common ancestor some 200 million years ago.
		"The evidence of the fossils indicates that though this did eventually occur, it took place gradually and piecemeal in each of the descendant lineages, so that the complete freeing of the ear bones from the jaw and their attachment to the skull occurred many times independently," Hopson said.
	www.eurekalert.org /pub_releases/2005-02/uocm-pjr020805.php (587 words)

	zaglossus (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-22)
		Zaglossus is the genus of the echidna, a spiny monotreme that lives in Australia.
		At a metre long, it was huge for an echidna and for monotremes in general.
		Remarks: This species is known from a fossil skull about 65 cm long.
	www.yourencyclopedia.net /zaglossus.html (143 words)

	Dinosaur Dreaming (Monash University)
		Unfortunately, this part of the fossil layer became increasingly difficult to access so at the end of the third week, we dismantled the system and moved the excavation area to a section of the layer that was more easily accessible.
		The fossil bones are found by breaking them when we split the rock and often we are unable to identify the fossil from the exposed cross-section.
		This means that the monotremes must have split apart from the common stock of marsupials and placentals at a primitive stage where the transition in function of this bone had not taken place.
	www.sci.monash.edu.au /msc/dinodream (683 words)

	Ghost lineage - EvoWiki
		A ghost lineage is an evolutionary lineage for which no fossil record exists, but the presence of which is inferred from related organisms separated by vast stretches of time.
		The obvious fact that monotremes are derived from a common ancestor with placentals required the postulation of a then unknown, 80 million year long fossil lineage.
		That lack of fossil record means that those ancestors did not really exist, and their descendants had been specially created relatively recently!" However, such claims are often easily disproved by the discovery of appropriate intermediate fossils.
	wiki.cotch.net /index.php/Ghost_lineage (304 words)

	Articles - Monotreme (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-22)
		Monotremes were very poorly understood for many years, and to this day some of the 19th century myths that grew up around them endure.
		Monotreme means 'single opening' in Greek, and comes from the fact that their urinary, defactory, and reproductive systems all open into a single duct, the cloaca.
		In 1991, a fossil tooth of a 61-million-year-old platypus was found in southern Argentina (since named Monotrematum, though it is now considered to be an Obdurodon species).
	www.worldhammock.com /articles/Monotreme (756 words)

	Monotremes (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-22)
		However, they produce milk for their offspring by way of mammary glands, they have hair and not feathers, they have 3 inner ear bones, and the lower jaw consists of a single bone.
		Monotremes are only found in Australia and New Guinea.
		The platypus is typically found in aquatic environments and is an avid swimmer; echidnas and mainly terrestrial and are poor swimmers.
	www.cartage.org.lb /en/themes/Sciences/Zoology/ClassMammalia/Mammals/OrderMonotremata/OrderMonotremata.htm (219 words)

	Creationism and the Platypus
		The fossil teeth are similar enough to these vestigial teeth to allow identification, and they show that ancient platypuses had teeth as adults.
		All monotremes and almost all marsupials are found on a continent which has, except for bats and rodents, no native placental mammals.
		At the same time as this remarkable mass migration of marsupials and monotremes took place, we are expected to believe that not a single placental mammal species from the rich fauna of Indonesia chose to cross these hypothetical land bridges, even though many Indonesian mammals are large and highly mobile.
	www.talkorigins.org /faqs/platypus.html (2239 words)

	Kollikodon (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-22)
		It is known only from an opalised fragment of dentary, with one premolar and two molars in situ.
		The fossil was found at Lightning Ridge, New South Wales, Australia.
		The original suggestion for the animal's name was Hotcrossbunidon, but this was felt to be invalid in terms of the rules of zoological nomenclature, and so Kollikodon was officially proposed.
	uncover.us /en/wikipedia/k/ko/kollikodon.html (250 words)

	Stone Age Mutant Mammal Turtles (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-22)
		Of all the mammals, the monotreme (egg-laying mammal) seems to be the closest to reptiles.
		After monotreme eggs are hatched, the young are helpless, and, in the case of the echidna, are carried in shallow abdominal pouches.
		Young monotremes do not have mouth parts suitable for suckling; the liquid produced by the nippleless mammary organ is licked from the belly hair of the mother.
	www.ridgenet.net /~do_while/sage/v4i12f.htm (3996 words)

	Natural History Collections: Monotremes
		Monotremes are the only group of mammals that lay eggs, i.e.
		Monotremes resemble other mammals in producing milk to nourish their young, in having three inner ear bones and a single bone in the lower jaw.
		Like marsupials, monotremes have lower metabolic rates than eutherian mammals but they are still endothermic and can maintain their bodies at a constant temperature regardless of environmental temperatures.
	www.nhc.ed.ac.uk /index.php?page=24.134.165.167 (193 words)

	Transitional Fossils FAQ
		This fossil was found in association with fossils of land mammals, suggesting this early whale maybe could walk on land.
		Within a few decades after the Origin, these and other fossils, along with many other sources of evidence (such as developmental biology and biogeography) had convinced the majority of educated people that evolution had occured, and that organisms are related to each other by common descent.
		Typically, the only people who still demand to see transitional fossils are creationists who have been reading 100-year-old anti-evolution arguments, and who are either unaware of the currently known fossil record or are unwilling to believe it for some reason.
	holysmoke.org /cretins/transfos.htm (3172 words)

	Untitled Document (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-22)
		Living monotremes are the platypus and echidna (nicknamed the "spiny anteater", but not closely related to the placental anteaters of the New World tropics).
		The oldest monotreme fossil is Cretaceous Steropodon of Australia, an exquisite opalized jaw fragment with molars similar to later platypus-like molars found in the Cenozoic.
		A single Cenozoic South American monotreme fossil suggests that the range of monotremes extended from Australia through Antarctica to South America during the Cretaceous, made possible by the connections among these continents at this time.
	ijolite.geology.uiuc.edu /01SprgClass/geo143/lect/lect21.html (1209 words)

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