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Maintained by pioweb@ucsc.edu. The common ancestor of placental mammals probably looked like Eomaia scansoria, the earliest known placental mammal, shown here in an artist's reconstruction based on a 125-million-year-old fossil skeleton found in China in 2002.aintained by pioweb@ucsc.edu. The common ancestor of placental mammals probably looked like Eomaia scansoria, the earliest known placental mammal, shown here in an artist's reconstruction based on a 125-million-year-old fossil skeleton found in China in 2002.
Let's consider a few more examples: 1  Apes and humans both evolved from a common primate ancestor. 2  This is an example of divergent evolution. 3  Flying squirrels and sugar gliders are very similar, yet different. 4  A flying squirrel is a mammal and a sugar glider is a marsupial. 5  They do not share a common ancestor.