Miocene mammal reveals a Mesozoic ghost lineage on insular New Zealand, southwest Pacific
New Zealand (NZ) has long been upheld as the archetypical example of a land where the biota evolved without nonvolant terrestrial mammals. Their absence before human arrival is mysterious, because NZ was still attached to East Antarctica in the Early Cretaceous when a variety of terrestrial mammals...
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Online Access: | http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1697831 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17159151 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0605684103 |
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:1697831 2023-05-15T13:42:38+02:00 Miocene mammal reveals a Mesozoic ghost lineage on insular New Zealand, southwest Pacific Worthy, Trevor H. Tennyson, Alan J. D. Archer, Michael Musser, Anne M. Hand, Suzanne J. Jones, Craig Douglas, Barry J. McNamara, James A. Beck, Robin M. D. 2006-12-19 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1697831 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17159151 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0605684103 en eng National Academy of Sciences http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1697831 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17159151 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0605684103 © 2006 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA Biological Sciences Text 2006 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0605684103 2013-08-31T12:52:35Z New Zealand (NZ) has long been upheld as the archetypical example of a land where the biota evolved without nonvolant terrestrial mammals. Their absence before human arrival is mysterious, because NZ was still attached to East Antarctica in the Early Cretaceous when a variety of terrestrial mammals occupied the adjacent Australian portion of Gondwana. Here we report discovery of a nonvolant mammal from Miocene (19–16 Ma) sediments of the Manuherikia Group near St Bathans (SB) in Central Otago, South Island, NZ. A partial relatively plesiomorphic femur and two autapomorphically specialized partial mandibles represent at least one mouse-sized mammal of unknown relationships. The material implies the existence of one or more ghost lineages, at least one of which (based on the relatively plesiomorphic partial femur) spanned the Middle Miocene to at least the Early Cretaceous, probably before the time of divergence of marsupials and placentals >125 Ma. Its presence in NZ in the Middle Miocene and apparent absence from Australia and other adjacent landmasses at this time appear to reflect a Gondwanan vicariant event and imply persistence of emergent land during the Oligocene marine transgression of NZ. Nonvolant terrestrial mammals disappeared from NZ some time since the Middle Miocene, possibly because of late Neogene climatic cooling. Text Antarc* Antarctica East Antarctica PubMed Central (PMC) East Antarctica New Zealand Pacific Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103 51 19419 19423 |
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English |
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Biological Sciences |
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Biological Sciences Worthy, Trevor H. Tennyson, Alan J. D. Archer, Michael Musser, Anne M. Hand, Suzanne J. Jones, Craig Douglas, Barry J. McNamara, James A. Beck, Robin M. D. Miocene mammal reveals a Mesozoic ghost lineage on insular New Zealand, southwest Pacific |
topic_facet |
Biological Sciences |
description |
New Zealand (NZ) has long been upheld as the archetypical example of a land where the biota evolved without nonvolant terrestrial mammals. Their absence before human arrival is mysterious, because NZ was still attached to East Antarctica in the Early Cretaceous when a variety of terrestrial mammals occupied the adjacent Australian portion of Gondwana. Here we report discovery of a nonvolant mammal from Miocene (19–16 Ma) sediments of the Manuherikia Group near St Bathans (SB) in Central Otago, South Island, NZ. A partial relatively plesiomorphic femur and two autapomorphically specialized partial mandibles represent at least one mouse-sized mammal of unknown relationships. The material implies the existence of one or more ghost lineages, at least one of which (based on the relatively plesiomorphic partial femur) spanned the Middle Miocene to at least the Early Cretaceous, probably before the time of divergence of marsupials and placentals >125 Ma. Its presence in NZ in the Middle Miocene and apparent absence from Australia and other adjacent landmasses at this time appear to reflect a Gondwanan vicariant event and imply persistence of emergent land during the Oligocene marine transgression of NZ. Nonvolant terrestrial mammals disappeared from NZ some time since the Middle Miocene, possibly because of late Neogene climatic cooling. |
format |
Text |
author |
Worthy, Trevor H. Tennyson, Alan J. D. Archer, Michael Musser, Anne M. Hand, Suzanne J. Jones, Craig Douglas, Barry J. McNamara, James A. Beck, Robin M. D. |
author_facet |
Worthy, Trevor H. Tennyson, Alan J. D. Archer, Michael Musser, Anne M. Hand, Suzanne J. Jones, Craig Douglas, Barry J. McNamara, James A. Beck, Robin M. D. |
author_sort |
Worthy, Trevor H. |
title |
Miocene mammal reveals a Mesozoic ghost lineage on insular New Zealand, southwest Pacific |
title_short |
Miocene mammal reveals a Mesozoic ghost lineage on insular New Zealand, southwest Pacific |
title_full |
Miocene mammal reveals a Mesozoic ghost lineage on insular New Zealand, southwest Pacific |
title_fullStr |
Miocene mammal reveals a Mesozoic ghost lineage on insular New Zealand, southwest Pacific |
title_full_unstemmed |
Miocene mammal reveals a Mesozoic ghost lineage on insular New Zealand, southwest Pacific |
title_sort |
miocene mammal reveals a mesozoic ghost lineage on insular new zealand, southwest pacific |
publisher |
National Academy of Sciences |
publishDate |
2006 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1697831 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17159151 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0605684103 |
geographic |
East Antarctica New Zealand Pacific |
geographic_facet |
East Antarctica New Zealand Pacific |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctica East Antarctica |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctica East Antarctica |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1697831 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17159151 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0605684103 |
op_rights |
© 2006 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0605684103 |
container_title |
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |
container_volume |
103 |
container_issue |
51 |
container_start_page |
19419 |
op_container_end_page |
19423 |
_version_ |
1766170355148259328 |