First Cretaceous mammal from India

Abstract

The record of Cretaceous mammals in particular and Mesozoic mammals in general is biased in favour of the Laurasian landmass. There are relatively few reports of these mammals from the southern continents representing Gondwanaland, and most of these are confined to northwestern South America. Here we report the discovery of a new eutherian mammal from the uppermost Maas-trichtian sediments intercalated in a volcanic sequence in Naskal, Andhra Pradesh, India. This first record of a south-Asian Cretaceous mammal indicates a wide distribution of these creatures and suggests that the Indian plate was not isolated from northern continents depsite the geological evidence. Our finds may also contribute to the understanding of the origin and evolution of therian mammals from mammal-like reptiles (therapsids) which are well known from the southern continents.