Specifically,mammals eventually diversifiedinto thousands of distinct species.
We also knew that tree dwelling mammals struggled after the asteroid impact.
What had not been documented was whether mammals were becoming more terrestrial, in line with the habitat changes.
An artist’s rendition of Dryolestes, an extinct mammal from the Late Jurassic.© Artist James Brown. Pamela Gill
The bones representtherianmammals: mammals that give birth to live offspringas opposed to, for example, laying eggs.
Therian mammals include marsupials andplacentals, the latter being mammals that nourish their young through a placenta.
In other words, ground-dwelling mammals seemed to have fared better during the end-Cretaceous extinction.
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