image: Stem mammaliaforms (also known as 'stem mammals') are long-extinct relatives to the extant mammals (crown Mammalia). Docodonts are such a lineage of stem mammaliaforms. Their morphologies provide evidence for the ancestral mammalian condition. Their functional adaptations provide new insight on the ecological diversification of the earliest mammals. The newly discovered arboreal specialization and fossorial and subterranean specialization of fossil docodonts indicate that the stem mammaliaforms had very diverse feeding and locomotor functions, and a much wider ecological divergence as a whole, despite the dominance of dinosaurs in the Mesozoic. This material relates to papers that appeared in the Feb. 13, 2015 issue of Science, published by AAAS. The paper, Z.-X. Luo at the University of Chicago in Chicago, IL, and colleagues was titled, ;Evolutionary development in basal mammaliaforms as revealed by a docodontan.' The paper, Q.-J. Meng at the Beijing Museum of Natural History in Beijing, China, and colleagues was titled, 'An arboreal docodont from the Jurassic and mammaliaform ecological diversification.' view more
Credit: [Credit: April I. Neander, the University of Chicago]