L
LittleSoldier
Guest
The Fossil Record:if only all this were true but it seems no fossils have ever been found to show that platypuses evolved from reptiles. Only a few platypus fossils have been discovered but they show that this animal has not changed.It seems the only ancestors it ever had were other platypuses.Perhaps God created the platypus the way it is to show us how ridiculous it is to believe in evolution [Weird and Wonderful] imho and as I read it - twinc
Based on a fragment of lower jaw found in opal deposits at Lightning Ridge in New South Wales, a type of ancestral platypus (Steropodon galmani) existed alongside the dinosaurs about 110 million years ago.
In 1991, a fossil tooth belonging to a different kind of ancient platypus (originally described as Monotrematum sudamericanum but now probably regarded as another Obdurodon species, see below) was discovered in the Patagonian desert of Argentina. The tooth was found in sediments deposited over 60 million years ago, at the time when Australia and South America were still joined as part of the southern supercontinent Gondwana.
Fossils belonging to three other extinct platypus species (Obdurodon insignis, Obdurodon dicksoni, and Obdurodon sp. A) have been found in Australian sediments deposited between 25 and 15 million years ago, while a leg bone from the first close relative of the modern platypus (Ornithorhynchus sp.) has been dated to about 4.5 million years ago.
The earliest known remains of the platypus in its current form (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) date back to around 100,000 years ago.
platypus.asn.au/historical_background.html
[underlining added]
And for more info:
nature.com/news/2008/080121/full/news.2008.517.html
The fossil record, which is admittedly small for monotremes, is not the only way researchers can discover evolutionary pathways.