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ent for the marsupials and they never truly recovered their former level of diversity in the northern hemisphere the southern continents however were a different story marsupials formed a sizeable chunk of the mammalian fauna in paleocene south america up to 50 a number of these marsupials can be characterized as belonging to the same taxonomical order as modern opossums some of these were adapted for burrowing others for scaling trees interestingly marsupial equivalents of rodents and carnivorans also evolved in south america during the later phases of the paleocene the weasel sized arboreally proficient marsupial mayulestes probably sought out frogs and small mammals as prey it was similar in many ways to the marten mayulestes a marsupial weasel placental mammals piddling contributors to the range of mammal diversity for most of the mesozoic managed to outshine both the multituberculates and the marsupials during the paleocene we shall consider several unique and interesting placental animal groups that lived in the paleocene in the following passages the lepictids it is tempting to observe the tiny sizes small brain cases pointed snouts and insectivorous diet of hedgehogs shrews golden moles elephant shrews treeshrews tenrecs and moles and conclude that they all belong to a single taxonomic category of mammals this is not really the case and molecular analyses as well as studies in comparative anatomy demonstrate that these 7 animals represent up to five different mammalian orders erinaceomorpha hedgehogs soricomorpha shrews and moles macroscelidea elephant shrews scandentia treeshrews and afrosoricida tenrecs and golden moles the tree tops and underbrush of the paleocene were home to a great many such small to medium sized insectivorous creatures representing different genera families orders superorders infraclasses and subclasses a number of these in south america at least were marsupials others were multituberculates and some were early members of the currently existing placental orders listed in the previous paragraph still others belonged to placental families and orders that kicked the bucket by the end of the paleocene the long legged lepictids the shrew like paleoryctids or the semi aquatic fish eating otter like pantolestids for example one of the most charismatic placental mammals recovered from the paleocene is lepictidum a sort of strange cross between an elephant shrew and a kangaroo it was about 60 to 90 centimeters long had lengthy hind limbs shortened fore limbs and a slender snout that sported a short trunk like many other mammalian insectivores the skull was quite unspecialized it is unclear whether this animal ran on all fours or hopped like a wallaby and yes as fossil genera go lepictidum is unbelievably cute the video below represents one animator s impressive attempt at bringing this animal back to life plesiadapiforms we can tease out the beginnings of our own order primata from amidst this paleocene profusion of tree climbing and insect munching forms modern primates share a number of features among them a short muzzle forwardly directed eyes with stereoscopic vision hands with nails rather than claws and cheek teeth with rounded cusps most plesiadapiformes display none of these characters possessing a long snout strong curved claws and side facing orbits for the eyes they can however be related to primitive tarsier like primates mostly on the basis of shared features of the teeth and the auditory bulla a bony structure that encloses the bones of the middle ear it is likely that they were close relatives of true primates if not directly ancestral to them they were extremely abundant in the paleocene and are interpreted as being lemur like in appearance they had long digits and flexible limbs for maneuvering through the forest canopy over 25 genera and 75 species of plesiadapiformes have been discovered from this period leaping about the tree cover as far north of the tropics as northern wyoming which was warmer and less arid during the paleocene condylarths primitive ungulates called condylarths also existed in the paleocene many of them bear little semblance to modern hoofed animals like horses or deer for example arctocyon was a wolf sized condylarth with the limb proportions of a bear and a diet that included meat it had a pair of impressive lower canines and a long robust skull its cheek teeth indicate that it was primarily a plant eater it is identified as a primitive ungulate by subtle features of its limb joints and dentition dissacus was another example of a condylarth that consumed meat it had digits that terminated in hoof like structures many different groups of condylarths have been recognized in the fossil record primitive ungulates left arctocyon by dmitry bogdanov right phenacodon by charles m knight some of the condylarths were browsers like ectoconus or phenacodus and possessed clear signs of tapir like hooves some of these animals were well adaptated for running the condylarths are generally regarded as being the basal ancestral stock from which the odd and even toed ungulates arose titanoides a late paleocene herbivore by smokeybjb by the end of the paleocene various large bulky herbivores appeared on the scene some of them condylarthian in origin and others not titanoides was a strange non condylarthian herbivore that approached the size of a rhinoceros and had giant saber like canines and long forelimbs the earliest civet like ancestors of dogs cats hyenas and bears also evolved in the late paleocene though their story will be told in another section of finstofeet it is astonishing how many wildly different lineages ptilodonts marsupials and plesiadapiformes among others evolved chisel like incisors and rodent like skulls during this epoch true rodents arrived onto the scene at the end of it all competing with and ultimately eclipsing the various pseudo rodents of the paleocene were there any large non mammalian predators during the paleocene one of the most unusual aspects of the paleocene was the presence of large predatory birds and reptiles that occupied the topmost rungs of the food chain in terrestrial ecosystems across the world the k t extinction event did not put the dinosaurs out of business entirely they were survived in the succeeding age by birds some aspects of the dinosaur to bird transition have already been dealt with in the taking wing series fossil evidence suggests that birds weathered the cretaceous paleocene transition poorly with only a few taxa escaping extinction these surviving forms eventually gave rise to all the different families of birds that we currently observe there is molecular data that contradicts this picture pointing to a pre k t event divergence for many of today s major bird lineages gastornis the terror bird in any case by the late paleocene one group of birds had lost the ability to fly and assumed the form in likeness of some of their extinct theropod relatives of large land bound predaceous bipeds the gastornithidae these terror birds were up to 2 metres tall and small non functional wings they had large powerful beaks for capturing and tearing prey apart it is often depicted as feeding on carrion and mammals they are related to modern waterfowls update correction january 2013 some recent evidence seems to suggest that the gastornithidae were actually herbivores pristichampsus a cursorial crocodile illustration by robert bakker crocodillians and crocodile like champsosaurs flourished during the paleocene pristichampsus was a land walking 3 meter long crocodile from this period that had hoof like toes and long legs it was heavily armored and capable of galloping after fleeing prey archaic marine crocodiles roamed the seas while a variety of crocodiles alligators and now extinct champsosaurs inhabited swamps and marshes the world over relicts of a by gone age of reptiles just recently specimens of a monstrous 40 to 50 foot snake appropriately named titanoboa were uncovered from this period it was by far the longest and heaviest snake known to science i ll leave you with this rather entertaining teaser for the smithsonian channel s special on titanoboa note title card art by nobi tamura sources 1 agustí jordi and mauricio antón mammoths sabertooths and hominids 65 million years of mammalian evolution in europe columbia university press 2010 2 prothero donald r after the dinosaurs the age of mammals indiana university press 2006 3 http www paleocene mammals de accessed 23 may 2013 13 comments sauropods whale lizards may 13 2012 2 26 am filed under uncategorized the force of gravity together with certain physiological and ecological constraints holds in check the evolution of ever larger body sizes among mammals on land by becoming secondarily adapted to life in water however whales have been able to circumvent at least some of these size restrictions left a blue whale the largest living animal known to science right the african elephant the largest extant land animal the largest extant land mammal the african elephant is considerably outweighed by sea going baleen whales of even middling proportions in all of the cenozoic era the 65 million year period following the extinction of the dinosaurs no terrestrial mammal ever grew to match the modern gray whale let alone the blue whale in body dimensions the reduced weight constraints of an aquatic medium accounts for this apparent difference in maximum attainable size outside of the mammals however there is one group of extinct land creatures that did approach and in some cases surpass the awe inspiring lengths of the largest baleen whales pushing the evolutionary envelope in terms of height length weight and girth in a way that no other terrestrial animal group ever did together with whales the sauropods are examples of animal gigantism par excellence what are sauropods the term sauropoda refers to group of quadrupedal megaherbivorous dinosaurs that existed for a span of over 135 million years from the close of the triassic period to the very end of the reign of the dinosaurs their highly distinctive body plan was characterized by 1 an elongate neck one that in some genera grew to double the length of the trunk 2 a small skull relative to body size with enlarged eye orbits and highly placed nasal openings 3 a massive body with a long tail 4 stout columnar limbs positioned directly below the body the bones of the hands forefeet were arranged into a roughly tubular configuration vertical with respect to the ground with the phalanges finger bones reduced only the first digit bore a claw and this too was lost in some of the later groups the structure of the hind foot was notably different from that of the fore foot the phalanges were larger and three of the digits were typically claw bearing the bones of the hindfoot were not arranged vertically with respect to the ground as was the case with the hand bones but appear to have assumed a flatter posture semi plantigrade a cushioning pad of tissue seems to have been present at the base of the hindfoot reconstructions of sauropod hands and feet as either elephant like with nail like hooves or lizard like with clawed fingers splayed out every which way are equally incorrect there was limited deviation from this general body plan over the rather lengthy course of sauropod evolution paleontologists have puzzled for decades over the ecological biomechanical and physiological implications of sauropod size and anatomy how big did they get what sort of diet fueled those enormous bodies how did the sauropod heart pump blood across those serpentine necks all the way to the brain this article shall consider some of these questions how big did sauropods get i have seen books quantify the dimensions of sauropods in feet meters cars double decker buses building stories elephants and bulldozers the longest of them diplodocus and supersaurus hit a length of about 33 35 meters longer than a blue whale even conservative body mass estimates suggest that the heaviest sauropods argentinosaurus weighed over 70 tonnes 10 times the weight of a male african elephant the sizes of various sauropod species compared the depicted sizes of the red sauropod amphicoelias and the grey sauropod bruhathkayosaurus are controversial and i have opted to ignore them in this article there were of course examples of much smaller sauropods eoparasaurus for example was only 6 meters long from snout to tail the immense size of sauropods would have served as a deterrent against predators and there was no shortage of large powerful predators in the world they inhabited the long neck would have given the animal a wide sphere of access to vegetation what did sauropods feed on how did they process food sauropod teeth which ranged from pencil shaped to spatulate depending on the species were designed primarily for grabbing and tearing vegetation off shoots and branches cropping rather than grinding down tough plant matter there is nothing analogous to the chewing apparatus of modern mammalian herbivores in the oral anatomy of sauropods no large flattened squarish teeth positioned at the back of the jaw to pulverize ingested food items the head was small and the dentition weak we may infer that very limited mechanical breakdown of food took place in the oral cavity before it was swallowed it has been proposed that sauropods utilized large stones in the stomach called gastroliths to grind down food this digestive adaptation is called a gastic mill and is observed in modern birds but the small sizes of fossilized gizzard stones relative to body dimensions as well as the possibility that they are simply a result of sedimentary processes has led a number of researchers to dismiss the idea that this form of food reduction played major role in sauropod digestion but without a gastric mill or significant oral processing how did sauropods physically reduce ingested plant matter into smaller more digestible bits perhaps such processing was not necessary like modern vertebrate herbivores sauropods almost certainly relied on a community of symbiotic microbes to break down the otherwise indigestible cellulose present in the cell walls of ingested plant material this microbe mediated process involving the enzymatic breakdown of cellulose and other carbohydrates into short chain fatty acids that can be absorbed by the host is called fermentation the tremendous sizes of sauropods might have permitted the retention of food in the digestive tract for long periods of time prolonged food retention times and extensive exposure to microbial fermentation may have compensated for the limited mechanical reduction of food in the mouth and gut the lengthy necks of sauropods gave them an enormous foraging range they fed on gymnosperms conifers sphenophytes eg horsetails and pteridophytes ferns as flowering plants diversified rapidly during the mid cretaceous they too were incorporated into the sauropod diet bird...