By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A nocturnal existence is a way of life for numerous mammals, from bats that swoop through dark skies to skunks that emit their noxious spray under moonlight and majestic lions, tigers and leopards that prowl the night. This contradicts the conventional wisdom that the nocturnal lifestyle emerged with the appearance of the first bona fide mammals about 200 million years ago because they needed to slink around in the dark to avoid becoming dinosaur chow.
Ancient nightlife: Forebearers of mammals were nocturnal partiers
