Re: No Cretaceous placental mammals?

["T. Michael Keesey" <keesey@gmail.com>]

On 6/22/07, K and T Dykes <ktdykes@arcor.de> wrote:
> Unless I've been dating that attractive Miss Informed again, the last I
> heard was that the unambiguous Cretaceous fossil record for the 28? (or
> something like that) extant feathery fraternal orders, was closely
> comparable to the weight of seagull droppings on my car.  As I haven't got a
> car, that would be less than one.
>
> Then again, I think the most recent thing I happened to read on such
> mammal-birdy matters was Benton MJ (1999), Early origins of modern birds and
> mammals, molecules vs. morphology, BioEssays, 21, p.1043-1051.  Perhaps
> details of the landscape might've changed over the past eight years, but I'd
> be surprised to find an impressive nesting colony of such cases has
> accumulated.  Still, a bit old or not, the paper's at least easily
> accessible on-line.

So is Clarke et al. 2005:
http://www.digimorph.org/specimens/Vegavis_iaai/nature03150.pdf

They find _Vegavis iaai_, a Maastrichtian bird from Antarctica, to be
a stem-anatid. This means, at the very least, that pan-palaeognathes,
pan-galliforms, pan-neoavians, pan-anhimids, pan-anatids, and the
_Anseranas_ total group were distinct before the K/Pg boundary. (Also
possibly the _Lithornis_ branch--or is _Lithornis_ considered a
palaeognathe now?)

--
Mike Keesey