A more appropriate analogy might be climate as opposed to the weather on a specific day somewhere on the earth.
srweaver was not asking for that kind of specifics. The question he asked was quite reasonable. If you have some fossils from before the proto-mammal or proto-insect and some, or many, after, there should be some way of determining what characteristics it should have had, what it could have looked like.
If you don't know what to expect, how would you recognize it when you find it? So we don't know what to expect, but we'll know it when we see it?
srweaver was not asking for that kind of specifics. The question he asked was quite reasonable. If you have some fossils from before the proto-mammal or proto-insect and some, or many, after, there should be some way of determining what characteristics it should have had, what it could have looked like. How do you know that the specimens you and srweaver are seeking are not already known?
I don't know the answer, but it is possible that it is known to some reasonable certainty. Did either of you do a google, or did some creationist website pose the question?
(You should be very careful of the "science" you find on creationist websites. They do not do real science; they have all the answers figured out and they are bending facts every which way to make things come out the way they want. That is not science!)
... If you have some fossils from before the proto-mammal or proto-insect and some, or many, after, there should be some way of determining what characteristics it should have had, what it could have looked like. The Fossil Record: Evolution or "Scientific Creation" by Clifford A. Cuffey. Part 5 has a fairly detailed account of the transition between reptiles and mammals.
It's interesting what can be said about proto-mammal: it had hair, suckled its young, and laid eggs. It also had 3 earbones (by definition), one lower jawbone, and other bone features mentioned in the essay. Kinda like a modern-day monotreme, (though not specialized for aquatic or ant-eating life)
Note that the website belongs to the
This is the professional society for people who prospect for oil. If YEC or creationism were true, they'd switch in a heartbeat to make more money.
[The question he asked was quite reasonable. If you have some fossils from before the proto-mammal or proto-insect and some, or many, after, there should be some way of determining what characteristics it should have had, what it could have looked like.]
I think this may be more what you're looking for; taken from examples of some good fossil finds of very early mammals or "proto-mammals":
{{Zhangheotherium belongs to an extinct group of prehistoric mammals that has eluded scientists for decadessymmetrodonts (meaning "symmetrical tooth"). Until this discovery, scientists had been basing all their information about symmetrodonts on isolated teeth and jaw fragments. At five inches in length, the live Zhangheotherium looked somewhat like a rat, with razor-like, triangular-shaped teeth that fit together like scissors. It lived by the lake and ate insects, and apparently was itself food for dinosaurs.
"Fossil mammals from this period are rare and extremely difficult to find," Luo says. "We knew symmetrodonts existed but had no idea what they looked like or what ecological role they played in a world dominated by dinosaurs." When the research team* first looked at the new fossil, they recognized the jaw and knew it was a symmetrodont. "But," recalls Luo, "the issue was: What was the anatomical significance of the rest of the animals body? Thats what we spent a great deal of time researching. And this skeleton provides us with a remarkably clear picture."
Symmetrodonts are one of six ancient mammal groups. Besides symmetrodonts, two others are also extinct: triconodonts and multituberculates. Most of us are familiar with the others, which still exist and evolved in this order: egg-laying mammals, or monotremes, like the duck-billed platypus or spiny anteater; marsupials, like the kangaroo, which carry their young in pouches; and placentals, like humans, dogs and cows.}}
http://www.carnegiemuseums.org/cmag/bk_issue/1998/marapr/feat3.htm
and this: From E. H. Colbert, 1980. Evolution of the Vertebrates, John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY
{{Among the earliest of the mammals are docodonts known as morganucodonts, represented by the genus Morganucodon (which is probably the same as an earlier-named genus, Eozostrodon) from the Upper Triassic of Europe and by the genus Megazostrodon from the Upper Triassic of South Africa. Originally, these forms were known from scattered teeth and a few jaw fragments but, within recent years, fossil bones in large numbers have been recovered from Triassic fissure fillings within Carboniferous limestones in South Wales. Skulls with associated skeletons are known from South Africa. In addition, some closely related materials have been found in southwestern china.
The morganucodonts were tiny mammals with slender lower jaws. In these early mammals the lower jaw was of mammalian form, and functionally was composed of a single bone., the dentary, at the back of which there was a large and high coronoid process for the attachment of strong temporal muscles, and a well-formed condyle for articulation with the squamosal bone of the skull. But, significantly, on the inner side of the jaw was a groove within which was preserved the remnant of the articular bone -- a sort of paleontological reminder of the old reptilian jaw joint, still preserved in this ancient mammal. Since the quadrate bone of the skull was also preserved, obviously these animals possessed both jaw joints, as did the mammal-like reptile, Diarthrognathus, described in Chapter 9.}}
http://www-geology.ucdavis.edu/~cowen/HistoryofLife/CH15.html
There are of course many other references, but this is a good start, and following the links will show what the known (from their fossils) transitionals looked like.