New Insights into The Timeline of Mammal Evolution
Published:30 Dec.2021 Source:Queen Mary University of London
A new study, published today in the journal Nature, has provided the most detailed timeline of mammal evolution to date.
The research describes a new and fast computational approach to obtain precisely dated evolutionary trees, known as 'timetrees'. The authors used the novel method to analyse a mammal genomic dataset and answer a long-standing question around whether modern placental mammal groups originated before or after the Cretaceous-Palaeogene (K-Pg) mass extinction, which wiped out over 70 per cent of all species, including all dinosaurs.