Controversies in Evolution: 'Jurassic beaver' unearthed in China

Another evolutionary Icon 'bites the dust'

The linked MS-NBC article didn't say whether it was placental, monotreme or marsupial. I guess I'll have to dig it out of Science.

If that's not a porn film title in the making, I don't know what is.

It is neither monotreme, multituberculate, marsupial, or placental. It's a docodont: a mid-Mesozoic group of mammaliaforms (the larger clade of mammals and their closest relatives).

About the only other time docodonts have made it into the news was the discovery of the burrowing Fruitafossor last year.

Scratch that last comment: Fruitafossor was actually a true mammal, nested between monotremes and their extinct kin on one branch, and triconodonts, multis, marsupials, and placentals on the other. Sorry about that.

Leave it to beaver.

I wonder if creationists will claim that this is yet another so-called living fossil which will disprove evolution ?

They'll probably just classify it as another "kind" of beaver !

Cool article.

The evolutionary history of mammals is a long and complex one. The earliest mammals evolved from primitive terrestrial reptiles called therapsids, which lived some 200 million years ago.

— mistaken

Ever notice how much of this stuff comes out of China.

The Commie atheists have a real handle on fossil making.

Google it.

Note that several 2004 and 2005 studies have redated the sediments at Daohugaou where the fossils were recovered to the Lower Cretaceous, not the Middle Jurassic.

"Jacob" wrote:

"Ever notice how much of this stuff comes out of China."

Ever notice how much this stuff comes from one type of fossil bed, a lake bottom environment? So called lagerstätten, or lake-beds, are ideal preserves of a low-oxygen slow-deposition region where accumulated detritus can be resolved into crepe-thin layers of sandstone and limestone and shale. These regions are IDEAL for preserving fine details in animals, and are known at the Quercy site in France (not a commie country), Messel and Solnhofen in Germany (also, not a commie country), the London Clay in England (commies!!!), the Green River beds in Wyoming, USA (Is the USA a commie country?), and places in Russia, Denmark, the eastern US seaboard such as at Newark, New Jersey, and so forth. So quit whining.

"The Commie atheists have a real handle on fossil making."

Indeed they are so busy faking these fossils that they forgot such finds have been known in other countries for centuries. The fossil beds in China are both more extensive, and less-developed, than in other countries, and there are tons of villages spending old-time hard work mining and quarrying to make roofing slates and housing materials and thus, as in Solnhofen, coming across these fossils more readily than the scientists at the other sites, who work on their own, and never fake fossils. The last faked fossil in the West was, if I recall correctly, either Creationists hoaxes at Paluxy, and the Piltdown forgery, which was falsified -- not by creationists disproving evolution -- but by scientists who had accepted it for 50 years before making a detailed study to find the fakery involved ... and may have implicated famed author Sr Arthur Conan Doyle, a "christian" and an "occultist".

So who's doing the harm here? When we, as scientists, find falsification, lies, and corruption in our institutions and our collections, we are as avid to be rid of these problems and expose them as any one else, and will be the first to do so, as history has shown for centuries, and will continue to do. So far, creation apologetics has FAILED to provide evidence that has not been quacked or misinterpreted out of context.

This fossil itself shows the detail of variability in many early non-mammals, long before they became true mammals, and expands our knowledge, not decreases it. This should be embraced, not rejected. Creationists seem almost rabid to proclaim questions on where our "transitional fossils" are, and when we point to animals like Castorocauda, or Archaeopteryx, they wave their arms, or call them "beavers" and "birds", and decided to stop listening. The truth is, should anyone decide to hear it, is that nearly all animals are "transitional" between ancestors and descendants, and this is true of fossils back to time immemorial.

I was under the impression that "therapsid" always referred to a kind of synapsid reptile and was distinct from "pelycosaur" another kind of synapsid (think dimetrodon). Perhaps the confusion here is the similarity to the term "theropod" which always refers to a diapsid (except when it refers to Lenny).

Ever notice how much of this stuff comes out of China. The Commie atheists have a real handle on fossil making.

Okay, this is marginally off topic, but we are talking about primative mammals. I have a question that has intrigued me for years and have never found the answer in a comparative physiology text.

What form does nitrogenous waste excretion take in monotremes?

This is an important evolutionary question, plus it bugs the heck out of me that I don't know.

The last faked fossil in the West was, if I recall correctly, either Creationists hoaxes at Paluxy, and the Piltdown forgery

What form does nitrogenous waste excretion take in monotremes?

re: Monotremes
Mr. Vicklund - Wow! What a poor design! Why would anyone put an amusement park and a waste treatment facility in the same location? It must be The Unintelligent Designer.

Kevin, I didn't ask the question well. Do they excrete uric acid or urea? There that's clearer!

Kevin, I didn't ask the question well. Do they excrete uric acid or urea? There that's clearer!

The reason I ask is that birds secrete uric acid. The explanation usually given is that being egg-layers birds require a nitrogenous waste that isn't water soluble. Since monotremes are egg-layers I wonder how, if they produce urea, they manage to not poison their developing young.

Posted by J-Dog on February 24, 2006 09:04 AM

"re: Monotremes
Mr. Vicklund - Wow! What a poor design! Why would anyone put an amusement park and a waste treatment facility in the same location? It must be The Unintelligent Designer."

The single external entry/exit condition is inherited from their reptile-like ancestors and is shared with many modern reptiles and birds. Call it an unholy alliance.

this is the worst web page i've ever been to.