So the fossil record shows that mammals appeared before birds, if I read that correctly?
What are mammal-like reptiles? IOW, How is a reptile mammal-like?
Did mammals and dinosaurs evolve from a common ancestor or are mammals considered a branch off of dinosaurs and where do birds fit in? Because of their egg laying, I would presume that it's thought that they decended from reptiles, correct? I've seen a diagram called the web of life or tree of life on other threads but couldn't find anything useful when I tried googling it. There's just way too much info out there and I wasn't sure where to start.
This is way past my expertise--my studies were all on the more recent end of things. I did a quick google and picked out the highlights to answer the questions, but did not verify the information.
And one of the things I found has already been corrected, so there you go.
There should be some websites out there that will give you what you need. As a start try here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammal.
If you need more, just ask and someone should be able to help.
I did see the correction reading through the posts and thanks for the link.