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The class Mammalia is divided into two subclasses based on reproductive techniques: egg-laying mammals (yinotherians or monotremes - see also Australosphenida), and mammals which give live birth . The latter subclass is divided into two infraclasses: pouched mammals ( metatherians or marsupials ), and placental mammals ( eutherians , for which ...
The traditional "Theria hypothesis" states that the divergence of the monotreme lineage from the Metatheria and Eutheria lineages happened prior to the divergence between marsupials and placentals, and this explains why monotremes retain a number of primitive traits presumed to have been present in the synapsid ancestors of later mammals, such ...
Marsupials also have other common structural features. Ossified patellae are absent in most modern marsupials (though a small number of exceptions are reported) [6] and epipubic bones are present. Marsupials (and monotremes) also lack a gross communication (corpus callosum) between the right and left brain hemispheres. [7]
Figure 1:In mammals, the quadrate and articular bones are small and part of the middle ear; the lower jaw consists only of dentary bone.. While living mammal species can be identified by the presence of milk-producing mammary glands in the females, other features are required when classifying fossils, because mammary glands and other soft-tissue features are not visible in fossils.
The class Mammalia is divided into two subclasses based on reproductive techniques: monotremes, which lay eggs, and therians, mammals which give live birth, which has two infraclasses: marsupials/metatherians and placentals/eutherians. See List of monotremes and marsupials, and for the clades and families, see Mammal classification ...
Placental mammals are anatomically distinguished from other mammals by: a sufficiently wide opening at the bottom of the pelvis to allow the birth of a large baby relative to the size of the mother. [4] the absence of epipubic bones extending forward from the pelvis, which are found in all other mammals. [5]
The mammals of Australia have a rich fossil history, as well as a variety of extant mammalian species, dominated by the marsupials, but also including monotremes and placentals. The marsupials evolved to fill specific ecological niches, and in many cases they are physically similar to the placental mammals in Eurasia and North America that ...
Marsupials' reproductive systems differ markedly from those of placentals, [10] [11] though it is probably the plesiomorphic condition found in viviparous mammals, including non-placental eutherians. [12] During embryonic development, a choriovitelline placenta forms in all marsupials.