CREATION BY EVOLUTION 



Certain of the lower mammal-like reptiles show transitional 

 stages, for in them one phalanx of the third digit and 

 two phalanges of the fourth digit were much reduced in 

 length and appear to be almost on the point of disappearing 

 (Broom). Very possibly the reduction in the number of 

 phalanges in cynodonts was associated with the newer 

 method of walking more on the ends of the fingers and toes. 



Thus it may be seen that man has inherited not only the 

 number of his fingers and toes but even the number of the 

 small bones on each finger and toe from the mammal-like 

 reptiles of the Triassic period. 



Man also owes to the higher mammal-like reptiles a whole 

 series of structural improvements in his skull, teeth, and 

 jaws, which the limits of space here compel us to deal with 

 in a summary fashion, for the teeth of these reptiles are 

 already reduced to two sets, corresponding to the milk teeth 

 and the permanent teeth of man, and are differentiated into 

 incisor, canine, premolar, and molar teeth, as in the mam- 

 mals, including man. Moreover, the cynodonts clearly fore- 

 shadow the mammals in the progressive predominance of 

 the dentary or tooth-bearing bone of the lower jaw, one 

 on each side, which in the mammals is the only surviving 

 one of the numerous separate pieces found in the lower 

 jaw of reptiles. 



Origin of the Egg-laying Mammals 



The higher mammal-like reptiles take us almost to the 

 threshhold of the mammals, and they almost exactly divide 

 the structural differences between mammals and primitive 

 reptiles. Meanwhile the typical or modernized reptiles, 

 including the turtles, lizards, crocodiles, and dinosaurs, 

 acquired divergently specialized characters that carried 

 them far away from the mammal-like reptiles, which, as we 



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