A report of a research published in Current Biology says that the fastest mammal evolution occurs in the Jurassic period.
Early mammals lived alongside dinosaurs during the Mesozoic Era (252 - 66 Million years ago). They were thought to be exclusively small, nocturnal and insect-eaters but fossils discoveries of the past decades, especially from China and South America, shows that they developed diverse adaptation for feeding and locomotion, including gliding, digging and swimming.
To find the how rapidly the evolution happens they did a large-scaled analysis of the skeleton and dental changes of the Mesozoic mammals. By calculating, the researchers found the evolution reaches its peak at the Jurassic period (200-145 million years ago).
The team comprised researchers from Oxford University and Macquarie University. Dr. Roger Close of Oxford University is the lead author of this report.
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