Chapter 34

Chapter 34b:Vertebrates(mammals)

iaThough mammals

predate the dinosaurs, it was only once the

dinosaurs were mostly gone that the mammal

adaptive radiation began in earnest

The defining features of extant mammals are their

hair, mammary glands, larger brains,

differentiated teeth, modified jaws, etc.

The mammal lineage

predates the mammals with the

synapsids: the mammal-like reptiles

Duck-billed platypuses are aquatic so keep their eggs

warm in burrows until hatching

Eutherians are the placental mammals, i.e., the majority of

mammals are eutherians

The primates inhabit a branch of the mammalian phylogeny also occupied by the rodents

anthropoids include the monkeys, the apes,

and us

Variety of

primate hands

Prosimians

Primates possess numerous adaptations that allow rapid movement through trees

• Remember all the characteristics of primates we talked about! (AND DISTINGUISH THEM FROM HUMAN CHARACTERISTICS)

Monkeys are Anthropoids

The hominoids include the apes and us

Known or Suspect Hominids

Hominids (by your text) are more closely morphologically similar to us than they are to

chimpanzees

s H. erectus lived from approximately 1.8 to 0.5

million years ago and perhaps even longer H. erectus was the most successful of the the

genus Homo lineages in terms of time on Earth H. erectus spread her kind throughout the old

Pan H. erectus

H. sapiensHomo

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