Talk:Evolution of mammals

message: Very impressive article, folks - one of the best I've seen on Wikipedia in the last year or so. Thanks! -- Writtenonsand (talk) 13:18, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Kudos!

message: "Multituberculates ... are a fine example of how evolution was "experimenting" in the Mesozoic." --- I suggest that we tweak this sentence, as IMHO even with the scare quotes on "experimenting" it tends to re-inforce the popular misconception that evolution is conscious or teleological rather than stochastic. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 13:34, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I certainly don't want to encourage misconceptions that evolution is conscious or teleological. But I couldn't think of an alternative phrasing which was not much longer, and the article is rather long already. If you can think of an alternative that adds no more than a handful of words to the length, that would be good.Philcha (talk) 16:41, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Evolution as "experimenting". Tweak?

message: The section Expansion of ecological niches in the Mesozoic lists "mammaliforms and true mammals" -- I suggest that we add in a note on the relevent order for each item listed, in order to give readers a better sense of the taxonomic picture. E.g., "Castorocauda (order Docodonta), which lived in the mid Jurassic ..." -- Writtenonsand (talk) 13:44, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not happy with this idea as it would increase the length and complexity of a long, complex article. IMO: the general reader doesn't need it and wouldn't understand it; specialists know the taxonomic context already; intermediate readers can get the taxonomic context from the linked articles on the animals mentioned.Philcha (talk) 16:44, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Section "Expansion of ecological niches" - add further taxonomic clarification? 

message: Someone added to the section "Lactation"
This is an interesting idea, but the way it is currently presented has major weaknesses:
* No citations.
* Ambiguity. Would neck ribs prevent the mother from producing milk or the baby from taking it? I expect the latter but then the phrasing could be a lot clearer. I'd also like more explanation of why neck ribs are such an obtacle.
* Logic. If correct, the presence of neck ribs would imply no suckling but absence of neck ribs would no imply suckling - in fact one would expect to find (eventually) transitional forms with no neck ribs but without suckling.
* Position - at present it breaks the flow of the text.
I hope the person who added this material will respond here or by editing that part of the article.  Otherwise I'll remove it in 2 weeks. Philcha (talk) 14:56, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've removed the remarks about neck ribs. Philcha (talk) 18:12, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Lactation / suckling and neck ribs

message: Great work, Philcha! My compliments, you assembled a great article! DaMatriX (talk) 00:00, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Great work! 

message: I've removed from the end of "(earliest evolution of) Hair / fur" the following sentence: "The possession of such insulation is thought to be one of the several reasons that mammals triumphed the K-T extinction." It provides no refs to support it, and I've never seen any such suggestion from a credible source. Philcha (talk) 18:35, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Hair/fur helping mammals survive K-T extinction

message: To improve accessibility, could we have a timeline similar to  in the article? This would give an overview of development of key features with approximate dates, and would be more meaningful for readers who aren't familiar with the eras and their dates.-gadfium 20:21, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Seconded. The article as it stands, in this and other respects, seems aimed not at a general population but at university undergraduates at least. Elsewhere in the encyclopaedia, for certain topics, it might be reasonable to assume a higher level of education (Madhamaka Philosophy, for example), but that is not true for this topic. High school students as well as people with a general interest might visit this page and would be familiar with neither the divisions of mammals you have chosen or the eras that you have chosen as your timeline.
--174.7.56.10 (talk) 18:20, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Timeline

message: This article ought to be nominated at Wikipedia:Good article nominations. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 01:07, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good article nomination 

message: Just to point out I couldn't see humans anywhere in the definition of a mammal Phthinosuchusisanancestor (talk) 19:01, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Humans are mammals, so they "inherit" all the defining features of mammals. OTOH specifically human characteristics can't be used in defining "mammal" as they would not apply to the vast majority of mammals. -- Philcha (talk) 19:06, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Where are humans?

message: Aleksey (Alnagov (talk) 09:25, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Eotherapsid hypothesis for the origin of Monotremata 

message: This might just be nitpicking, but i noticed the cladogram (morphological) under the section 'Evolution of major groups of living mammals' is very slightly different to the original over at Paleos.com. In particular, there are quite a few extra '+' signs on the one reproduced here. As i understand the system used by Palaeos.com, the '+' signs represent missing or unnamed clades. Therefore, i'm not too sure what the following part of the cladogram means:
--Eutheria
    |
    +--Xenarthra (late cretaceous)
    |  (armadillos, anteaters, sloths)
    |
    `--
If you replace the '+' sign with a name, you get the following:
--Eutheria
    |
  (Unnamed)
    | 
    |--Xenarthra (late cretaceous)
    |  (armadillos, anteaters, sloths)
    |
    `--
This doesn't make much sense as you have two clades name (both Eutheria and unnamed) that unite the two following clades.
Please can someone knowledgable on this or maybe a member of palaeos.com take a look at this? Many thanks.
Darkuser999 (talk) 17:12, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cladogram Template (Palaeos.com) Inconsistency 

message: Under the Monotremes heading, the article says that the finding that Teinolophos was a Cretaceous platypus shows that the platypus and echidna lineages diverged earlier, but that seems to contradict a recent finding that implies that they split only about 19-48 million years ago.
http://www.pnas.org/content/106/40/17089
Doesn't that seem like it needs to be included here?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.167.51.34 (talk) 21:25, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Go for it. Looks like there are 2 competing views to be summarised: (a) T. was a basal monotreme, before the platypus and echidna lineages diverged, possibly quite recently; and (b) T. was a platypus, and the platypus and echidna lineages diverged before T. Please add the citation for the paper you mentioned. --Philcha (talk) 22:09, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dating the Platypus-Echidna split 

message: "One often feels compelled to try to explain the evolution of features that do not appear in fossils. This endeavor often involves Molecular phylogenetics, a technique that has become popular since the mid-1980s but is still often controversial because of its assumptions, especially about the reliability of the molecular clock."
The wording of this is quite odd. "compelled" by whom? Also, molecular phylogenetics is used by thousands of studies (the phrase is in about 30,000 articles, according to Google Scholar), so I don't think it is still "controversial". Like any method, it must be used appropriately. The molecular clock assumption is often violated, which is true, but 1) molecular phylogenetic methods to infer a topology or even tree with branch lengths do not depend on a clock, and 2) there are methods that can provide dates even in the absence of a molecular clock.
--Bcomeara (talk) 20:55, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Controversial phylogenetics? 

message: Does anyone agree that this phrase does not be in the first sentence? I put a comment that this term has been used in the past at the end of the second paragraph. It does not seem appropriate to put this in the first sentence. Even at Synapsida it is not in the first sentence. Thegreyanomaly (talk) 03:27, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The term mammal-like reptile may be outdated in phylogenetic taxonomy, but it is not incorrect per se. Calling it incorrect is mixing phylogeny and classification. It is a common term found in any number of textbooks. I believe it warrants mentioning early on, if not in the first sentence, at least in the lede. Synapsida is a difficult concept, in principle it denotes the whole synapsid line, but is used almost exclusively for the non-mammalian grade. This ambiguity is very difficult to get across to a layman (not to mention lower grade students). Using mammal-like reptiles when one actually wish to refer to the non-mammalian grade is better, as the definition is very clear and has been stable for over a century. Petter Bøckman (talk) 10:41, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

text: I think it needs to be in the first paragraph. The paragraph is not too well written anyhow, and stumbles over itself trying to explain phylognetic concepts rather than the evolution of mammals. A rewrite is in order. I would suggest covering basic mammals evolution in the first paragraph, and use the last paragraph of the lede to detail problematic concepts like Crown Mammalia, Mammaliformes and Synapsida. Petter Bøckman (talk) 07:44, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

text: One solution would be to identify the ancestors as therapsids, thus avoid the term "reptiles" if that is the aim. The basic idea must be to inform the reader than mammals did not appear out of thin air, but evolved from somewhere, in this case a group of rather strange looking ugly critters Petter Bøckman (talk) 08:02, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Outdated, incorrect term "mammal-like reptiles" does not need to be in the first sentence 

message: Hi, Petter  Bøckman. I see you've changed "true mammals" to "crown mammals". I admit "crown mammals" is more exact. But I think "true mammals" is easier for general readers, who usually are not aware of phylogenic / cladistic terms. --Philcha (talk) 11:09, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added a sentence explaining the term. There's nothing inherently 'true' about about the crown group (nothing inherently 'crowny' either for that matter), it is all about naming convention. I object to the term "true" since it indicates that e.g. multituberculates are somehow "untrue" mammals, i.e. have major traits that would set them off relative to the 'true' group. The term 'crown' at least is fairly neutral, and easily understood relative to a tree analogy. Petter Bøckman (talk) 11:59, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Multituberculates quite probably are crown mammals, though. Ucucha 12:04, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Just now discovered that myself, sigh. I guess I need another example... Petter Bøckman (talk) 12:09, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Morganucodontids will do, I think. If I recall correctly, there is also the problem that people disagree about the definition of "Mammalia": some make it equal to the crown group of living mammals (and therefore, possibly excluding multis), while others use Mammalia in the meaning of Mammaliaformes. Ucucha 12:16, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is that while the crown group approach to defining well known taxa is not universally accepted (not even within the phylogenetic taxonomy circles), it is quite commonly in some quarters (notably dinosaur studies). Some of the PhyloCode people are very keen on pushing the "crown-group-as-the-only-acceptable-group" stance, particularly for birds and mammals, but without being explicit about it. I find it advisable to call crown groups 'crown this' and 'crown that', to avoid confusion (Mammalia (traditional) vs. Crown Mammalia being a salient point). Interestingly, even the term 'crown group' sees other uses, see for instance Australosphenida and Ausktribosphenidae. Petter Bøckman (talk) 12:26, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: We can't win. See Evolution_of_mammals#Mammals_or_mammaliformes.3F. --Philcha (talk) 13:02, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: That shouldn't stop us from saying crown mammals when we mean crown mammals. Being consequent in using the terms mammaliformes and crown mammals we neatly avoid the whole discussion. See Rowe & al for an example of this approach in a very relevant mammal article. Petter Bøckman (talk) 13:19, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Philcha, you wrote the (original and not very mutated) section Evolution_of_mammals#Mammals_or_mammaliformes? yourself, including the statement "Although this now appears to be the majority approach,...".  This statement did never have an inline reference. The sentence before has one; unhappily, the link (at the moment = note 23) now is stale.  You may be right, but then there should be some (tertiary) sources supporting the claim. JoergenB (talk) 19:20, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

text: In the 13 May 2011 discussion above, Petter Bøckman's comments at 11:59 and 13:19 are spot on. And using the phrase "true mammals" does nothing to help the general reader; it promotes the misunderstandings referred to in the 11:59 comment, while "crown mammals," with a Wikilink to Crown group, can lead the reader to a clear understanding of the concept. Is there some reason to stop at only two replacements of "true mammal" by "crown mammal"?  There are half a dozen more occurrences of the former phrase that invite such replacement. Peter M. Brown (talk) 16:52, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Completely agree. --Dr. Günter Bechly (talk) 13:17, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  "true" vs "crown" mammals 

message: My revisions of October 9 and October 11 are made in response to dissatisfaction, as noted in italic purple, with the following text.  Discussion is welcome.
:The catastrophic Permian-Triassic mass extinction slightly more than 250 million years ago killed off about 70 percent of terrestrial vertebrate species, and the majority of land plants.
:As a result:
:*Ecosystems and food chains collapsed, and the recovery took about 6 million years.
:*The survivors had to re-start the struggle for dominance of their former ecological niches — even the cynodonts, which had seemed on the way to dominance at the end of the Permian.
::The 6 million year figure is low.  For consistency with the Lystrosaurus article, I'm calling it 30 million.  What figure one uses, of course, depends on one's criterion for a recovery's being complete.
::After a complete collapse of the ecosystem, the former niches no longer exist, so there can be no struggle to dominate them. To survive, a species must carve out a new niche in the transformed world.
::The claim about the cynodonts seems to be that there was a trend in the late Permian which, had it continued, would have resulted in cynodont dominance.  This is dubious. To suggest such a trend, note it below, on this page, and the matter can be discussed
:But the cynodonts lost out to a previously obscure group of sauropsids, the archosaurs (which include the ancestors of crocodilians, dinosaurs and birds). This reversal of fortunes is often called the "Triassic takeover". Several explanations have been offered for it, but the most likely is that the early Triassic was predominantly arid and therefore archosaurs' superior water conservation gave them a decisive advantage. All known archosaurs have glandless skins and eliminate nitrogenous waste in a uric acid paste containing little water, while the cynodonts probably excreted most such waste in a solution of urea, as mammals do today; considerable water is required to keep urea dissolved.
::As there are indeed several explanations, reporting only one is open to the charge of violating WP:UNDUE . My revision is open to the same charge, but I have at least refrained from endorsing the proffered explanation.
:The Triassic takeover was gradual — in the earliest part of the Triassic cynodonts were the main predators and lystrosaurs were the main herbivores, but by the mid-Triassic archosaurs dominated all the large carnivore and herbivore niches.
::As regards predators, Benton 2004, p. 140  is quite clear that dominance passed directly from the gorgonopsians and titanosuchids  to the archosaurs.  The cynodonts never held this baton.  Disagree? Discuss below. As regards herbivores,  "Triassic takeover" has been defined only with reference to cynodonts and archosaurs, so the situation of the lystrosaurs is irrelevant.
:But the Triassic takeover may have been a vital factor in the evolution of cynodonts into mammals. The cynodonts' descendants were only able to survive as small, mainly nocturnal insectivores.
::The wording suggests that the mammals supplanted the the cynodonts during the Triassic.  This is not correct, as the tritylodonts survived until the Middle Cretaceous.
::Further, the statement that the mammals "were only able to survive" in their ecological niche, while strictly true, suggests that they were somehow more limited than other taxa. On the contrary, all organisms are so limited. Hawks can only survive as aerial predators; fish, only underwater.
Peter M. Brown (talk) 17:27, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Triassic takeover 

message: I have revised the cladograms in the sections  Family tree — cynodonts to mammals and  Family tree of early crown mammals, moving the Allotheria into Crown Mammalia.  I have also moved the Multituberculates subsection to the section on The earliest crown mammals with some revisions.
Prior to my edit, the position of the allotherians relied on a  cladogram in Palaeos.com created by Toby White. Though the explanation provided with this cladogram is certainly cogent, the fact remains that White's view is a minority one, and WP:UNDUE requires that articles "not give minority views as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views." A look in Mikko's Phylogeny Archive makes clear the minority status of White's position: the five cladograms provided in the pages on Mammaliaformes​ and Mammalia all cite well-regarded sources and all place Allotheria in Crown Mammalia. Even White acknowledges that the inclusion of the multituberculates in Crown Mammalia is "generally taught."
White may well be correct. His view certainly deserves to be included in the article. Until it is more widely adopted, however, it should not be given such prominence.
Peter M. Brown (talk) 21:08, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Multituberculates belong in Crown Mammalia 

message: My rewrite of 30 January 2012 is made in response to dissatisfaction with much of the previous text, as follows:
:One result of these uncertainties has been a change in the paleontologists' definition of "mammal".
::The uncertainties referred to, noted in the section preceding  Mammals or mammaliaformes?, are the difficulties that a poor fossil record presents for the task of determining phylogeny.  The change involved is a redefinition of Mammalia by those attempting to construct a phylogenetic basis for taxonomy, a project that is made more difficult by the uncertainties mentioned.  These uncertainties provided no motivation for the redefinition.
:For a long time a fossil was considered a mammal if it met the jaw-ear criterion (the jaw joint consists only of the squamosal and dentary; and the articular and the quadrate bones have become the middle ear's malleus and incus).
::No support is provided for the historical claim that both the jaw structure and the ear structure have been traditionally required for mammalian status. A case can probably be made for the jaw criterion, but one for the ear is quite unlikely.  Of the fifteen traditional definitions listed in Rowe (1988), ear structure is included in only four.
:But more recently some paleontologists have usually defined "mammal" as the crown group mammals, i.e. the last common ancestor of monotremes, marsupials and placentals and all of its descendants. The need to address the animals that are more mammal-like than cynodonts, but less closely related to monotremes, marsupials and placentals, led to erecting the group Mammaliaformes to accommodate these primitive forms.
::Phylogenetically, mammals are cynodonts.  Unless a more restricted meaning of "cynodonts" is intended, and none is obvious, "the animals that are more mammal-like than cynodonts" is meaningless; no animal is more mammal-like than mammals. The phrase "less closely related", used in the second sentence above, standardly expresses a ternary relation: A is less closely related to B than to C.  In the present context, A is the mammaliaforms and B is the extant mammals, but C is wholly mysterious.
:Although this now appears to be the majority approach, some paleontologists have resisted it because it simply moves most of the problems into the new taxon without solving the original problem; the Mammaliaformes includes some animals with "mammalian" jaw joints and some with "reptilian" (articular-to-quadrate) jaw joints.
::There has been no response to  JoergenB's request, above, for a secondary-source citation supporting the claim that "this now appears to be the majority approach".  The claim can therefore be deleted. Moreover, it is wholly obscure what "the original problem" is.  No reason is provided why the facts about mammaliaform jaw joints should be problematic.
:Despite these objections, this article follows the majority approach and treats most of the cynodonts' Mesozoic descendants as mammaliaformes.
::Most of the cynodonts' Mesozoic descendants were crown mammals—see the chart in Luo (2007).  By definition, crown mammals are mammaliaforms. There seems no room for objections.
Peter M. Brown (talk) 19:35, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mammals or mammaliaforms 

message: In its first paragraph, the section  Hair and fur includes the sentence, "Arguments that advanced therapsids already had hair are unconvincing."  The source, Ruben and Jones (2000), does not contain the word "unconvincing" or any approximate synonym. In an encyclopedia, the word should only be used in the context unconvincing to so-and-so; to write that something is unconvincing without this qualification is simply to say that the writer is not convinced, a matter lacking in notability.
Of course, though WP edits have to be neutral, it is natural and acceptable that someone interested in a subject should have a point of view and hope to make contributions that lead others to agree. In particular, as National Geographic has recently stated that Thrinaxodon had whiskers, it is important to present the counterargument in some detail, with reliable sources. This can be done in an neutral manner, however.  Using the term "unconvincing" is not acceptably neutral. The most effective course, I think, is to delete the sentence that I am challenging; the text then flows naturally into the following paragraph, which presents the actual arguments, most of which are ably reviewed in the Ruben and Jones article.
It is unfortunate that the image of Thrinaxodon in the lede shows anteroposterior streaks that are highly suggestive of hair. Perhaps a better image can be found.  (The  pinnae in the image are also inappropriate: pinnae enhance hearing only at frequencies over 10,000 Hz and, given its ear structure, Thrinaxodon could not have been sensitive to such frequencies.) 
Peter M. Brown (talk) 20:05, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Uuups, you are right! I know I have seen just the turn "unconvincing" in a recent article Ruben, thought it was this one. Will find a better source (and expression!). Petter Bøckman (talk) 21:32, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: "Unconvincing" is not encyclopedic

message: I am reverting this edit to  the  Hair and fur subsection. (On this edit, the editor requested, "Please do not delete." Note that the edit I am reverting is a different one.)
In the edit summary of the change I have reverted, the editor pointed out that "No Jurassic animal can be ancestor of a Triassic animal". The replaced text, however, says pretty much the same thing—more specifically that, since the last common ancestor of Castorocauda and extant mammals was an ancestor of a Triassic mammaliaform, this last common ancestor must have been Triassic as well. (In principle, it could have been Paleozoic, but this is not the objection offered.)
The text that the editor provided says that Castorocauda is the sister of Tikitherium. On the contrary, Luo and Martin (2007) chart the relation between these genera as follows:
Castorocauda is included in Docodonta, which is the sister of Tikitherium, but Castorocauda is not itself the sister.
Peter M. Brown (talk) 16:22, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''Castorocauda'' and ''Tikitherium'' 

message: Hi, There is a thread here you may be interested in, about a consistent naming for articles dealing with evolution of taxa. Thanks! --Cyclopiatalk 17:08, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discussion on title of taxon evolution pages 

message: I feel that there is lacking information under the Erect limbs. I would like to add additional information, I am doing this in part of a college class project. Would it be appropriate to add information about limb evolution under this title? I am a newbie to this type of assignment, any help would be greatly appreciated.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nvarade (talk • contribs) 15:39, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  adding information to erect limb section 

message: * More information could be added to the section on erect limbs.
* Limb posture could use additional information and citations.
* Pictures on the evolution of limbs (bony structures, etc.) could really supplement the words.
* Research and add information on Hox gene expression in mammals and how this evolved over time (like we talked about in class with snakes and their loss of limbs).
Ecapelle (talk) 04:02, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comments from Ecapelle 

message: The picture illustrating the double jaw joint (squamosal-dentary and quadrate-articular) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jaw_joint_-_double.png) does not make mechanical sense, since a jaw attached to the skull in two places in the manner depicted could not rotate in the plane of the picture. It could only rotate about the line connecting the two joints, and therefore the two joints had to line up on a line perpendicular to the plane of the picture and/or be very close to one another. In fact, looking at the drawings of Morganucodontidae skulls at reference 31 in the article, especially these two, it is obvious that this was the case. It might be better to use the latter drawing as the basis for an illustration, to avoid confusion.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.249.121.125 (talk) 08:20, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Double jaw joint illustration 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Shouldn't there be some information on the difference of mammalian teeth from reptiles: permanence, specialized teeth?   TomS TDotO (talk) 11:28, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Teeth 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 23:57, 25 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I was just browsing this article and came across an evolutionary tree of placental mammals that seemed to be from the '90s or something; it still had taxa like insectivora listed as if they were clades; afrotheria scattered around with elephants next to perissodactyla and elephant shrews next to rodents; bats as close relatives of primates; pangolins as basal placentals instead of the sister group to carnivora; sorts of things that I have read used to be believed about mammal evolution way back before reliable molecular phylogenetics. The subsection it was in talked about the shift from basing our understanding of mammal evolution purely on which fossils we happen to have found to being able to refine it using genetics, but it didn't seem to make clear that the tree presented represented an out-of-date scientific consensus. I commented it out rather than deleting it because some of the info in there may still be useful, such as the time that the earliest known fossils of each taxon come from, but if it's going to be re-included then it needs some work. Even the phylogenetic tree in the following subsection could do with updating.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adam Dent (talk • contribs) 12:03, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  That really old evolutionary tree 

message: When did live birth manifest among mammalia (aside from monotremes) and mammaliamorpha? I'd like to see this addressed, but I myself do not know when it occured. Acwilson9 (talk) 06:31, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Live birth 

message: Moved from mainspace, where notes to self should not be maintained:

-- GreenC 13:43, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Notes to self" 

message: Seems recently reported news re a more precisely dated mammal evolution timeline may be worth a consideration - in any case - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 13:42, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mammal evolution timeline - more precisely dated? 

message: I think it would be good to expand the section #Brain with info on/from this study. It's currently featured in 2022 in science like so:
A study shows that, contrary to widespread belief, body sizes of mammal extinction survivors of the dinosaur-times extinction event were the first to evolutionarily increase, with brain sizes increasing later in the Eocene.
I update/d a few other articles with it. This and other studies could (and imo probably should) also be integrated into Evolution of the brain and Human evolution#Before Homo where I won't add it myself. Sadly the paper is paywalled and there may be other info/studies to add along with it.
 Prototyperspective (talk) 11:15, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please update with: "Brawn before brains in placental mammals after the end-Cretaceous extinction" 

message: Family tree – cynodonts to crown group mammals seems to be somewhat inconsistent with the following text sections. First, there's no Kuehneotheriidae section. Second, Hadrocodium is described as the "aunt" of crown mammals and it's stated that the above family tree shows that, but Kuehneotheriidae is the closest preceding branch in the provided tree. At the very least, I think these aspects of the article could be made clearer. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 21:36, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Kuehneotheriidae is only known from teeth fossils, I'm going to add a small paragraph to mention them. Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs) 21:53, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks! Does the "aunt" thing need to be addressed in some way? Daniel Quinlan (talk) 21:55, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: "Aunt" is a bit of an informal term and doesn't always imply being the closest parent, but it should be replaced by something more precise like "close relative of crown-group mammals". Also we need a paragraph to explain why we're saying "crown-group mammals" to begin with as there are two subtly different definitions of "mammal" (crown-group vs jaw bone definition). Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs) 21:58, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

text: The paragraph about the two mammal definitions was already there, I added the rest. Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs) 16:16, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Family tree – cynodonts to crown group mammals 

message: Throughout the text, there are several references to evolutionary features (such as the foramina behind eye sockets under “Synapsids” suggesting that these passive adaptations had some sort of purposeful trajectory (such as these foramina serving to lighten the weight of the skull). To me it comes across as a teleological argument, as if there was some sort of purposeful designer at work. If anyone feels similarly I’ll see if I can reword these statements to align with the science behind evolution. Alanrobts (talk) 04:37, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some teleology language in this piece