Three truths
- Timed
- Began about 180 million years ago · the last 4.3% of life's story
- Named
- ≈5,700 named living species · 0.3% of all named
- Weighed
- ≈0.17 Gt C · 0.03% of all life's carbon
Eukaryotes · animals · class
Mammals
Mammalia
Living · roughly 5,700 described species
Vertebrates that feed their young on milk and have hair. They arose from synapsid ancestors and diversified widely after the non-bird dinosaurs died out.
Warm-blooded, furry and fed on milk.
Key characteristics
- Mammary glands
- Hair or fur
- Three middle-ear bones
- Branched off
- About 265 million years ago (approximate)
- Parent lineage
- Therapsids
Child lineages
Classification
- First common ancestor (LUCA)
- › Archaea
- › Asgard archaea
- › Heimdall and complex-cell line
- › Complex cells (eukaryotes)
- › Amorphea
- › Opisthokonts
- › Holozoa
- › Animals
- › Parahoxozoa
- › Bilaterians
- › Deuterostomes
- › Chordates
- › Vertebrates
- › Jawed vertebrates
- › Bony vertebrates
- › Lobe-finned vertebrates
- › Four-limbed vertebrates
- › Amniotes
- › Synapsids
- › Therapsids
- › Mammals
Sources
- Mammal (Wikipedia) · Wikipedia
- TimeTree: the timescale of life · TimeTree
- Open Tree of Life · Open Tree of Life
- Tree of Life Web Project · Tree of Life Web Project