Abstract
WHATEVER may be the opinions of individual investigators, or even of groups of investigators, as to the status of the ancestors of the eutherian mammals, there has not as yet appeared any conclusive evidence which can determine the issue in favour of any one of the several theories available. Dentition, placentation, details of the skeleton and other somatic characters have all alike failed to supply a decisive solution to the problem. The ancestors may have been amphibians, reptiles, monotremes or marsupials; the Eutheria may have been derived together with the Prototheria and the Metatheria from a common ancestor; or the placentals may own one ancestor, the monotremes and marsupials another; or they may all have arisen independently from distinct pro-mammalian ancestors. At the present moment any of these propositions could be advanced with little fear of contradiction, although a general consensus of opinion would probably be found to favour descent of the Eutheria from some primitive, marsupial-like predecessor.
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ABBIE, A. The Ancestors of the Eutheria. Nature 144, 523–524 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/144523a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/144523a0
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