Photo: Dinosaur Extinction Spurred Rise of Modern Mammals, Study Says

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The skull of a 70-million-year-old mammal (left) resembles the skull of a modern mole (right), but the ancient animal is from a long-dead side branch of the mammal family, according to a new study.

The study, which compared mammal fossils from the past 150 million years with living mammals, found that the modern placental mammals first appeared after the extinction of dinosaurs.

Photograph courtesy John Wible/CMNH

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