Derek Moulton explains the mathematics behind bivalve shell design.
New Research In
Physical Sciences
Featured Portals
Articles by Topic
Biological Sciences
Featured Portals
Articles by Topic
Edited by James P. Kennett, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, and approved October 11, 2006 (received for review July 8, 2006)
Abstract
New Zealand (NZ) has long been upheld as the archetypical example of a land where the biota evolved without nonvolant terrestrial mammals. Their absence before human arrival is mysterious, because NZ was still attached to East Antarctica in the Early Cretaceous when a variety of terrestrial mammals occupied the adjacent Australian portion of Gondwana. Here we report discovery of a nonvolant mammal from Miocene (19–16 Ma) sediments of the Manuherikia Group near St Bathans (SB) in Central Otago, South Island, NZ. A partial relatively plesiomorphic femur and two autapomorphically specialized partial mandibles represent at least one mouse-sized mammal of unknown relationships. The material implies the existence of one or more ghost lineages, at least one of which (based on the relatively plesiomorphic partial femur) spanned the Middle Miocene to at least the Early Cretaceous, probably before the time of divergence of marsupials and placentals >125 Ma. Its presence in NZ in the Middle Miocene and apparent absence from Australia and other adjacent landmasses at this time appear to reflect a Gondwanan vicariant event and imply persistence of emergent land during the Oligocene marine transgression of NZ. Nonvolant terrestrial mammals disappeared from NZ some time since the Middle Miocene, possibly because of late Neogene climatic cooling.
Footnotes
- ↵†To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: trevor.worthy{at}adelaide.edu.au
Author contributions: T.H.W., A.J.D.T., C.J., B.J.D., and J.A.M. designed research; T.H.W., A.J.D.T., C.J., B.J.D., and J.A.M. performed research; T.H.W., M.A., A.M.M., S.J.H., and R.M.D.B. analyzed data; and T.H.W., M.A., A.M.M., S.J.H., and R.M.D.B. wrote the paper.
This article is a PNAS direct submission.
This article contains supporting information (SI) online at www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/0605684103/DC1.
Abbreviations
- NZ,
- New Zealand;
- SB,
- St Bathans.
- Received July 8, 2006.
- © 2006 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA
Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.
Miocene mammal reveals a Mesozoic ghost lineage on insular New Zealand, southwest Pacific
Sign up for Article Alerts
Article Classifications
- Biological Sciences
- Evolution
Jump to section
You May Also be Interested in
Researchers need safe return-to-work programs coupled with an infusion of stimulus funds and appropriate testing.
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons/National Institutes of Health.
Image credit: Ifremer/Victor6000/Momarsat 2017.
Watercourts were used to store live surplus fish in ancient Florida, a study suggests.
Image credit: Zachary S. Randall (Florida Museum of Natural History, Gainesville, FL).
Models to predict six life outcomes based on data collected over 15 years suggest that the use of predictive models in criminal and social systems may need to be reevaluated, along with the assumption that life trajectories can be predicted.
Image credit: iStock/DNY59.