First evidence of a venom delivery apparatus in extinct mammals.

摘要: Salivary venoms are a rarity in mammals, found only the duck-billed platypus, Caribbean Solenodon, and few shrews. Until now there were no known extinct mammals so equipped, but well preserved specimens of small pantolestid insectivore have been with venom delivery apparatus involving specialized teeth similar function structurally distinct from those living venomous mammals. The about 60 million years old, late Palaeocene sediments central Alberta that contain some exceptionally mammalian fossils. Numerous non-mammalian vertebrates evolved lethal to aid either securing prey or as protection predators, modern use these ways rare, including platypus (Ornithorhynchus), shrews (Soricidae) (Order Insectivora)1. Here we report evidence documented by well-preserved recovered rocks Alberta, Canada2,3. Although classified within Eutheria, phylogenetically remote Insectivora4 salivary systems (VDSs) differ markedly one another Solenodon Our discoveries therefore show much more flexible evolution VDSs than previously believed, contradicting currently held notions insectivorans representative supposedly limited role history. Evidently, predatory eutherians paralleled colubroid snakes5 evolving their several times independently.