Re: _Eomaia_ and dung-eating vultures...

["David Marjanovic" <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

> The species named in the Novacek paper is Ukhaatherium. It says that
> in the skeletons they collected in Mongoliam, "Skeletons of two
> eutherian taxa preserve epipubic bones, a zalamdbalestid (c.f.
> *Zalambdalestes*) and a new taxon of insectivore-like eutherian
> closely related to the previously described Asioryctes.

Ah, thanks. I've seen the paper but haven't copied it, thinking it was
already so old that all newer papers would repeat its findings... :-] This
certainly restores the situation of "no Cretaceous Euarchontoglires"
(someone please think up a better name).

> The new
> taxon, Ukhaatherium nessovi" is what they describe.

Awww... with that extra s that is only there so that Westerners don't say
z... :-{

> Speaking as a science writer, this is a potent reminder to be careful
> when simplifying descriptions. Terms like "eutherian" have to be
> explained to the general reader, but it isn't right to call Eomaia a
> placental.

This is, in turn, IMHO a good opportunity to explain that there was once
more diversity than has survived, that not every mammal need be a monotreme,
marsupial or placental.

> >And now I'll read the Supplementary Information. Or not (it has 162
pages).

I've already read 24 pages :-) Don't understand most of the dental
characters... but it's interesting how long the trough for the postdentary
bones that had already moved away from the lower jaw was retained. All those
Australosphenida except the recent *Ornithorhynchus* have it. Along with
"old surprises", e. g. Meta- and Eutheria have lost their coronoids
independently.