Monotremata

Monotremes are mammals of the order Monotremata. They are the only mammals still in existence which lay eggs, rather than bearing live young. The five extant monotreme species are the platypus and the four species of echidnas. Monotremes are typified by structural differences in their brains, jaws, digestive tracts, reproductive tracts, and other body parts, compared to the more common mammalian types. Although they are different from other living mammals in that they lay eggs, female monotremes are like other mammals in that they nurse their young with milk.

Monotremata

Ypna · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
monotremePBDB
Sits inside
AustralosphenidaPBDB
Diet
insectivorePBDB, for Mammaliaformes
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Mammaliaformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Mammalia

Time the record covers

At least 121 million years on record.

The record covers at least 121.4 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 125.77 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 5 of 42 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 9 of 42 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 1 of 42 occurrencesEocene — about 0 of 42 occurrencesOligocene — about 5 of 42 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 2 of 42 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 2 of 42 occurrencesPleistocene — about 16 of 42 occurrences128–124 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences124–120 Mya — about 1 occurrence115–111 Mya — about 2 occurrences111–107 Mya — about 1 occurrence103–98 Mya — about 2 occurrences98–94 Mya — about 5 occurrences94–90 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences73–68 Mya — about 1 occurrence68–64 Mya — about 1 occurrence64–60 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences34–30 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences30–26 Mya — about 2 occurrences26–21 Mya — about 3 occurrences17–13 Mya — about 1 occurrence13–8.6 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences8.6–4.3 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences4.3–0 Mya — about 19 occurrences121.4 Mya11.7 ka128 Mya0 Mya

42 occurrences of Monotremata on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

42 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

8 formations

Griman Creek — 29.46°S, 147.97°EGriman Creek — 29.47°S, 147.77°EGriman Creek — 29.43°S, 147.98°EGriman Creek — 29.40°S, 147.78°ENamba — 31.23°S, 140.23°ENamba — 31.10°S, 140.23°EEumeralla — 36.70°S, 143.40°EEumeralla — 38.85°S, 143.55°E"Wonthaggi" — 38.66°S, 145.68°EChorrillo — 50.51°S, 72.56°WEtadunna — 28.78°S, 138.40°ESalamanca — 45.50°S, 67.18°WEttadunna — 28.78°S, 138.42°E

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The named rock units Monotremata has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 22 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Monotremata and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Monotremata and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

394 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 37 sites for Monotremata, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

30 references

Each of the 42 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 18 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Monotremata

Credit
Ypna
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Monotremata was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itAustralosphenida through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Bonaparte 1838)