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“Garden of Eden” or “Fool's Paradise”? Phylogeny, dispersal, and the southern continent hypothesis of placental mammal origins

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2016

John P. Hunter
Affiliation:
Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology, Ohio State University at Newark, 1179 University Drive, Newark, Ohio 43055. E-mail: [email protected]
Christine M. Janis
Affiliation:
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Box G-B207, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912. E-mail: [email protected]

Extract

Where did the modern lineages of placental mammals originate? Recent molecular data seemingly have overturned not only schemata of placental relationships based on morphological data, but also hypotheses about the time and place of origin of the modern lineages. The original hypothesis of Northern Hemisphere origin, based on the fossil record, has been replaced by a “Garden of Eden” hypothesis of origins on a southern continent, based on molecular phylogenies. But, do the molecular data really support this new view of placental mammal origins?

Type
Matters of the Record
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

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