Not a eutherian, Cokotherium enters the LRT with Eomaia, a basal marsupial
Wang et al 2022 described
a new Early Cretaceous mammal, Cokotherium (Fig 1), “that fills a crucial gap between the earliest eutherians from the Yixian Formation and later Cretaceous eutherians.”
By contrast, in the large reptile tree (LRT, 2328 taxa) Cokotherium nested as a sister to Eomaia (Fig 2). There are no crucial gaps in the LRT due to the large number of taxa in the cladogram and Cokotherium did not fill any crucial gap. Cokotherium may be congeneric with Eomaia.
“Parsimony analysis places the new taxon with Montanalestes, Sinodelphys and Ambolestes as a sister group to other eutherians.”
The latter two are tested in the LRT.
Sinodelphys is a monotreme. Ambolestes is a marsupial.
Figure 1. µCT scans of the Cokotherium skull from above and below. DGS colors added here.
” data-medium-file=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/cokotherium.skull588.jpg?w=252″ data-large-file=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/cokotherium.skull588.jpg?w=584″ class=”size-full wp-image-90197″ src=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/cokotherium.skull588.jpg” alt=”Figure 1. µCT scans of the Cokotherium skull from above and below. DGS colors added here. ” width=”584″ height=”696″ srcset=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/cokotherium.skull588.jpg?w=584&h=696 584w, https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/cokotherium.skull588.jpg?w=126&h=150 126w, https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/cokotherium.skull588.jpg?w=252&h=300 252w, https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/cokotherium.skull588.jpg 588w” sizes=”(max-width: 584px) 100vw, 584px” />
Figure 1. µCT scans of the Cokotherium skull from above and below. DGS colors added here. Compare to Eomaia in figure 2.
The opening line in this paper reads,
“Placentals are the most specious and diverse of the three living mammalian clades and their evolutionary history can be traced back more than 120 Myr to the Mesozoic era.”
This taxon is not a placental in the LRT. It is a basal marsupial.
Figure 2. Newly revised tracing and reconstruction of Eomaia based on the scans of Cokotherium in figure 1.
” data-medium-file=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/eomaia_skull588.jpg?w=153″ data-large-file=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/eomaia_skull588.jpg?w=523″ class=”size-full wp-image-90198″ src=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/eomaia_skull588.jpg” alt=”Figure 2. Newly revised tracing and reconstruction of Eomaia based on the scans of Cokotherium in figure 1. ” width=”584″ height=”1144″ srcset=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/eomaia_skull588.jpg?w=584&h=1144 584w, https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/eomaia_skull588.jpg?w=77&h=150 77w, https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/eomaia_skull588.jpg?w=153&h=300 153w, https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/eomaia_skull588.jpg 588w” sizes=”(max-width: 584px) 100vw, 584px” />
Figure 2. Newly revised tracing and reconstruction of Eomaia based on the scans of Cokotherium in figure 1.
Eomaia scansoria
(Ji et al. 2002) Barremian, Early Cretaceous ~125 mya, ~10 cm in length) was originally considered a basal eutherian mammal, but not a placental mammal. Here it nests as a basal marsupial. Eomaia (Fig 2) was updated based on the µCT scans of Cokotherium (Fig 1) .
References
Ji et al 2002. The earliest known eutherian mammal, Nature 416:816-822.
Wang H-B, Hoffmann S, Wang D-C, Wang Y-Q. 2022. A new mammal from the Lower Cretaceous Jehol Biota and implications for eutherian evolution. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 377: 20210042. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2021.0042
Source: https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/2024/12/02/not-a-eutherian-cokotherium-enters-the-lrt-with-eomaia-a-basal-marsupial/
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