160-million-year-old fossils suggest a new model of life --
gliding -- for the forerunners of mammals, in an evolutionary parallel to
modern mammal gliders
Date: August 9, 2017
Source: University of Chicago Medical Center
Summary:
Two 160-million-year-old mammal fossils discovered in China show
that the forerunners of mammals in the Jurassic Period evolved to glide and
live in trees. With long limbs, long hand and foot fingers, and wing-like
membranes for tree-to-tree gliding, Maiopatagium
furculiferum and Vilevolodon
diplomylos are the oldest known gliders in the long history of early
mammals.
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