eutherian

(adjective)

the mammals more closely related to animals like humans and rodents than to marsupials

Related Terms

  • metatherian

Examples of eutherian in the following topics:

  • Living Mammals

    • Living mammals can be classified in three subclasses: eutherian, metatherians and monotremes.
    • Living mammals can be classified into three major classes: eutherians, monotremes, and metatherians.
    • The eutherians, or placental mammals, and the metatherians, or marsupials, together comprise the clade of therian mammals.
    • Marsupials differ from eutherians in that there is a less complex placental connection.
    • Eutherians are the most widespread of the mammals, occurring throughout the world.
  • Evolution of Mammals

    • Later, the eutherian and metatherian lineages separated.
    • Metatherians are the animals more closely related to the marsupials, while eutherians are those more closely related to the placentals.
    • Eutherians are distinguished from noneutherians by various features of the feet, ankles, jaws, and teeth.
    • One of the major differences between placental and nonplacental eutherians is that placentals lack epipubic bones, which are present in all other fossil and living mammals (marsupials and monotremes).
    • Since Juramaia, the earliest-known eutherian, lived 160 million years ago in the Jurassic, this divergence must have occurred in the same period.
  • Characteristics of Mammals

    • While male monotremes and eutherians possess mammary glands, male marsupials do not.
    • Eutherian mammals also possess a specialized structure that links the two cerebral hemispheres, called the corpus callosum.
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