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Figure 1 | EvoDevo

Figure 1

From: A dating success story: genomes and fossils converge on placental mammal origins

Figure 1

Schematic comparison of placental mammal divergence estimates based on: (A) previous molecular divergence studies [4, 10]; (B) the fossil record of eutherians, including placentals[14, 15]; and (C) the recently published divergence estimates from the phylogenomic analysis of dos Reis et al.[9]. The shaded grey areas denote the period during which significant intraordinal divergences within placental mammals occur, which, for B and C, correspond with large increases in placental mammal taxonomic diversity recorded in the fossil record. Note that these representations are for general pattern only, and do not include estimates of error, which were particularly large in the early molecular clock analyses [20]. Many molecular divergence studies show a similar pattern as A, with several placental inter- and intraordinal divergences in the Cretaceous [4, 11, 13], while some others approach fossil-based estimates [9, 17–19].

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