New Monotreme Fossils Fail to Support Evolution

Diversity discovered, but not an
evolutionary progression as
Darwinism requires

 

by Jerry Bergman, PhD

The internet is abuzz with news about a new fossil discovery in Australia. In short, what the paleontologists found are fossils that

are a revelation. They show the world that long before Australia became the land of pouched mammals, marsupials, this was a land of furry egg-layers—monotremes. It seems that 100 million years ago, there were more monotremes at Lightning Ridge than anywhere else on earth, past or present.[1]

Monotremes are the only living mammals that lay eggs like a bird. The eggs are large and yolky. Monotremes also have a common opening for their urogenital and digestive systems. They are now found only in Australia and New Guinea. The only extant members of the family are the platypus and the echidnas.

The defining features of marsupials are their unique reproductive systems. The young are “born” in a relatively undeveloped state and then mature within a pouch located on their mother’s abdomen. They number over 300 species and include a wide variety of animals including kangaroos, koalas, opossums, wallabies, Tasmanian devils, wombats, and bandicoots.[2]

The origin of both marsupials and monotremes has stymied evolutionists. One of the more promising lines of research in claimed marsupial and monotreme evolution concluded that “Monotremes have multiple sex chromosomes with different sizes and genetic contents. The raison d’être [reason for existence] and evolutionary history of the monotreme sex chromosome complement is still very puzzling.”[3] The research published last month admitted that

a substantial Turonian-to-Eocene chronostratigraphical gap still exists in our understanding of monotreme evolution, from which not a single monotreme fossil has yet been discovered. As a consequence, it is unclear whether a diverse monotreme fauna survived the end-Cretaceous mass extinction event, and subsequently persisted (and perhaps ecologically radiated) prior to the arrival of marsupials in Australia by ∼54 Ma. Filling this mysterious interval of monotreme diversity and adaptive development should be a primary focus for research in the future.[4]

What the Flannery et al. study found was not evidence for progressive evolution but rather for the degeneration of

the Y-specific regions [which] are hetero-chromatic and much shorter than the comparable regions of the X, implying that the Y-chromosomes have degenerated during platypus evolution. For instance, Y1 has lost around 50 Mb of DNA, and Y5 has lost around 65 Mb of DNA. In comparison, chromosome size difference between human X and Y is around 100 Mb.[5]

The Deakin research concluded that

Our understanding of marsupial and monotreme chromosomes and their evolution has greatly advanced due largely to the molecular cytogenetic techniques and the availability of genome sequence data for representative species.[6]

The world’s leading expert on monotreme evolution explained the problem:

Scientists with Museums Victoria, Monash University, Swinburne University and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., examined every known significant monotreme fossil to chart their history and evolution…. Monotremes are iconic Australasian species – as the only egg-laying mammals alive today, the platypus and echidna continue to fascinate us. But the origins of these species have continually raised questions for scientists – why aren’t they more present in the fossil record and why can we only find them in Australia and New Guinea?… there were a few questions that really fascinated me with the monotremes. Where did they come from? Why are they restricted to Australia when they evolved at a time when the continents were joined – shouldn’t they be everywhere? Where are the echidnas in the fossil record?[7]

Rewrite or Re-wrong

What the new research has achieved is a “rewrite” of the past theories of the origin of monotremes and marsupials.[8] What they found, though, was not evidence of evolution but rather even more diversity including some monotremes that displayed both modern traits as well as so-called ancient traits. The

three new species demonstrate combinations of features not previously seen before in other living or fossil monotremes. One of the most striking of the new monotremes, Opalios splendens, retains characteristics of the earliest known monotremes, but also some that foreshadow adaptations in the living monotremes, the echidnas and platypus.[9]

The find supported the other creationist prediction, namely degeneration, evidenced by the loss of teeth; not the evolutionary development of new teeth, which is what evolutionism predicts. Taylor and Francis conclude

What is so unusual about this uniquely Australian story is that in one snapshot we see six different egg-laying mammals living together in Lightning Ridge over 100 million years ago. All of them are holding potential evolutionary destinies that can go off in different directions, and all of them are deep distant ancestors and relatives of the current living monotremes.[10]

Furthermore, paleontologists until now had “very few monotreme fossils, and so finding new fossils can tell us more about where they lived, what they looked like and how changes in the environment influenced their evolution.”[11]

Rather than supporting straight-line evolution from the putative monotreme common ancestor to the modern highly evolved example, the fossils only provide evidence of more variety, not evolution:

The discovery of these several new species in one small area suggest that the family tree of the egg-laying monotremes is far more complicated than the living platypus and echidna alone suggest.[12]

Discussion

Because paleontologists have historically uncovered very few monotreme fossils, finding new fossils can, evolutionists assume, help to understand more about their evolutionary history. However, what all these fossils discovered by Flannery et al. document is that much more variety existed in the past than was previously believed. What is required to document both monotreme and marsupial evolution is evidence of a progression from the common ancestor to the modern, highly-evolved monotremes. This ideal would be akin to the common iconic illustration of supposed human evolution from our apelike ancestor to modern man. Of note is this ideal has also not been documented by the human fossil record, but at the least we know what fossil evidence should exist if human evolution was true.

Wesleyan University Professor Jennifer Tucker, Associate Professor of the History of Science, writes that the human evolutionary progression is

one of the most intriguing, and most misleading, drawings in the modern history of science. For all its familiarity, no one—not biologists, not creationists—thinks the monkey-to-man drawing is an accurate illustration of Darwinian evolutionary theory. Darwin’s “Origin of Species” (1859) contained only a single illustration: a branching diagram, depicting evolution as a complex process characterized by random events, which is roughly how scientists view evolution today.[13]

The idea of the hominin progression dates back to not long after Darwin’s 1871 book was published. As a progression supported by fossils for humans has not yet been found, the solution is to redefine evolution from a progression to modern forms. Evolutionary biologist and historian of science, Stephen Jay Gould, denounced the progression image in his 1989 book Wonderful Life, protesting that life is “not a ladder of predictable progress.”[14] What it is, is a vague series of animals that, as a set, progresses forward.

No evidence of the required ladder has been found for human evolution in spite of a century of looking, and many millions of dollars expended by the National Geographic and other organizations. This is support for the view that human evolution from a common ape ancestor never occurred. From what is known so far about monotreme and marsupial evolution, the same explanation is used to explain the lack of evidence in order to negate the creation explanation. The creation explanation is monotremes and marsupials did not evolve, but rather were created as monotremes and marsupials.

Summary

The new fossil discovery illustrates the fact that more diversity existed in the past than today. This supports the loss of diversity view due to extinction as predicted by creation. The diversity found does not conform to straight-line evolution of life predicted by classical evolution of monotremes and marsupials. Rather, it documents evidence of extinction, leaving fewer life-forms existing today compared to the past. The new phylogenetic tree produced by the recent fossil finds does not support an evolutionary phylogeny (i.e., single ‘tree of life’) but rather a wider variety of monotreme and marsupial life in the past; the so-called bush pattern (i.e., a forest or orchard of separate animal ‘kinds’). None of the references I reviewed claimed the new fossil finds supported a plausible evolutionary scenario.

References

[1] Taylor and Francis, “New fossils provide evidence for an ‘Age of Monotremes’,” Phys.org,
https://phys.org/news/2024-05-fossils-evidence-age-monotremes.html, 26 May 2024.

[2] Deakin, J.E., et al., “The evolution of marsupial and monotreme chromosomes,” Cytogenetic and Genome Research 137:113–129, p. 123, 2012.

[3] Deakin, et al., 2012, p. 123.

[4] Flannery, T.F., et al., A diverse assemblage of monotremes (Monotremata) from the Cenomanian Lightning Ridge fauna of New South Wales, Australia, Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03115518.2024.2348753, 26 May 2024.

[5] Deakin, et al., 2012, p. 124.

[6] Deakin, et al., 2012, p. 126.

[7] Flannery, T.F., and M. Warwick, “Creatures great and small: Origins of monotremes revealed,” Australian Museum, https://australian.museum/blog/amri-news/creatures-great-and-small-origins-of-monotremes-revealed/, 28 March 2022.

[8] Flannery, T.F., et al., “A review of monotreme (Monotremata) evolution,” Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology 46(1): DOI: 10.1080/03115518.2022.2025900, 16 March 2022;  Layt, S., “Professor’s pandemic project rewrites origin of mysterious monotremes.” Brisbane Times, https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/professor-s-pandemic-project-rewrites-origin-of-mysterious-monotremes-20220325-p5a7vw.html, 25 March 2022.

[9] Taylor and Francis, 2024.

[10] Taylor and Francis, 2024.

[11] Taylor and Francis, 2024.

[12] Taylor and Francis, 2024.

[13] Tucker, J., “What our most famous evolutionary cartoon gets wrong,” Boston Globe, https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2012/10/27/what-our-most-famous-evolutionary-cartoon-gets-wrong/drKMD5121W6EUxXJ4pF0YL/story.html, 28 October 2012.

[14] Quoted in Tucker, 2012.

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Dr. Jerry Bergman has taught biology, genetics, chemistry, biochemistry, anthropology, geology, and microbiology for over 40 years at several colleges and universities including Bowling Green State University, Medical College of Ohio where he was a research associate in experimental pathology, and The University of Toledo. He is a graduate of the Medical College of Ohio, Wayne State University in Detroit, the University of Toledo, and Bowling Green State University. He has over 1,900 publications in 14 languages and 40 books and monographs. His books and textbooks that include chapters that he authored are in over 1,800 college libraries in 27 countries. So far over 80,000 copies of the 60 books and monographs that he has authored or co-authored are in print. For more articles by Dr Bergman, see his Author Profile.