Which animal is considered the missing link between reptiles and mammals?
Question #74384. Asked by tragic_flawed.
Arpeggionist
Answer has 2 votes
Arpeggionist 21 year member
2173 replies
Answer has 2 votes.
I'm not sure if there is one missing link species, but mammals are descended from a class of reptiles called synapsids, the most famous of which is the Dimetrodon.
Jan 10 2007, 2:24 AM
1cyprus
Answer has 4 votes
Currently Best Answer
1cyprus 19 year member
190 replies
Answer has 4 votes.
Currently voted the best answer.
The creature that came to my mind was the Platypus,this site mentions a 19th century myth that its was quasi-reptilian.
That site also says: "It is now generally accepted that modern monotremes are the survivors of an early branching of the mammal tree; a later branching is thought to have led to the marsupial and placental groups." In other words, they are not ancestral to either the placental mammals (us) or to the marsupials (koalas, etc). The ancestors of the platypus are closer to the reptiles than either the platypus or modern mammals are, and we do share some of the earliest of these ancestors without being in the platypus's line of descent. The platypus itself is not a missing link, but a descendant of an unknown ancestor that came between reptiles and mammals. Unknown ancestors, rather. The fossil record is limited as few animals actually get fossilised, and also the dividing line would be hard to place if we did have the complete lot. Changes are not usually sudden, unless you only look at widely spaced fossils. In between there would be many shades of difference. Missing link nowadays is more a popular press term than a scientific one.
Jan 10 2007, 4:05 AM
ryiannah_shrum
Answer has 3 votes
ryiannah_shrum 20 year member
32 replies
Answer has 3 votes.
Missing links don't really exist as how they are defined in popular culture. Evolution isn't a straightforward chain-link process. However, the closest possible group would be among the mammal-like-reptiles, the Therapsids.
One of the most popular ones would be Cynognathus.