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Audio of the Show

Date: 09/30/2007

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Question of the Day

Question:
"Dr. Hal, in the Kyzylkum Desert of western Uzbekistan, eccentric Russian paleontologist Lev Nessov discovered Mesozoic-era mammals he called ‘zhelestids.’ Are these linked to, or monophyletic with early ungulates, like. say, condylarths?"
Answer:
Now get this straight. In late Cretaceous eutherians, including so-called zhelestids, the postmetaconule crista forms the metacingulum, while in ungulates the metacingulum is formed by the postmetaconule crista continuing into the metastylar lobe. So there's your link for you. Nessov's discoveries of new Late Cretaceous Asian ungulatomorphs do help to clarify characters seen in earliest Paleocene archaic ungulates, in North America anyway, and allow a more testable hypothesis of ungulate monophyly. I hope that clears this up.