The rise of mammals in Africa / Расцвет млекопитающих Африки

The evolutionary explosion of mammals at the beginning of the Cenozoic Era, which began 66 million years ago, is a key event in our distant origins, and it is one of the main topics in current biological and paleontological studies. Knowledge about the origin of the large living groups of marsupials and placentals has made considerable progress following recent important discoveries in two diferent disciplines of the life sciences, paleontology and molecular biology. The latter has confirmed the role of Africa as the cradle of several large modern groups of placental mammals such as the afrotherians, which include a third of the extant mammalian orders, among which are elephants. Important discoveries of the former also demonstrate the role of Africa in the early evolution of modern mammals, especially for African ungulates (elephants, hyraxes, sea cows) and primates (lemurs, monkeys, apes). Paradoxically, this African evolution took place in a singular paleogeographic context, separated from other continents.

This was “Island Africa,” a gigantic island continent that remained isolated south of the ancient Tethys Sea for more than 80 million years, from 110 to 23 million years ago. Island Africa was not completely isolated, however. In fact, its isolation was repeatedly broken. This is biologically illustrated by a succession of episodes of mammal dispersals from Eurasia across the Tethys Sea. Various Eurasian mammals arrived at diferent times throughout the early Tertiary in Island Africa, where they established themselves. They had great evolutionary success in Africa, giving rise to several remarkable endemic radiations. Island Africa was the cradle of an important number of new groups of mammals, including several extant groups present in modern fauna. Some of them, elephants and monkeys, for instance, are famous and beloved; others, such as hyraxes, aardvarks, elephant shrews, otter shrews, springhares, and flying squirrels, are little known to most people, but they constitute an important and remarkable part of the endemic fauna of Africa today.This book outlines the fossil history of ancient African mammals and their evolution in light of the most recent discoveries and through a review of paleontological knowledge and field research. <...>