You can say that the early mammal-like reptiles were reptiles with mammalian features and the later ones were mammals with reptilian features. The middle ones are a toss up. What else would you expect from a transitional series of species? Didn't you say there were not any???
None at all, merely variation of species, which you mistake as transitional. Just as evolutionists mistook baby dinosaurs as separate species, just as they mistook several fragments as transitional between H erectus and apes that turned out to be variation of H erectus. Just as they mistake H erectus as a separate species, when it is merely a variation of H sapiens. Or one could say we are a mere variation of H erectus, if you prefer it that way. just as cats are mere variation of the same species.
Or one could say that the early mammal-like creatures were mammals with reptilian features. The middle ones mammals with features of both and the latter ones mammals with reptilian features. Some of the early ones, middle ones and later ones are undoubtedly reptiles, no one can say with certainty exactly what they were since we have no living specimens to examine. Basically it is anyone's best guess. But with today's thinking that dinosaurs were not reptiles, my bet is that the predecessors of mammals were not reptiles either.
I would expect nothing from a transitional species as evolutionists define them since they do not exist. I would however expect variation amongst species to change appearances drastically, the same as we caused by manipulating the cat species within a few generations that might have taken thousands of years without mankind's interference. It is this drastic change in appearance that we observe in cats in a few generations from interference by mankind that you mistake as transitional in the fossil record.
If you did not know how cats came to be, had never observed any living species, and found a house cat, Panther and Tiger fossil; you would assume the house cat and Panther were transitional species leading to Tiger. This is what has happened in the fossil record. You merely observe different stages of variation within that species that take long periods of time to happen when not directly interfered with by mankind's manipulation of breeding. Had cats in the past not came to live with man, we would not have the variety we see today, at least not in a mere few generations.
The same with dogs. Had the wolf not come to live with mankind, the German Shepard would not exist, at least within our lifetimes. What happened within a few generations would in nature undoubtedly taken thousands of years. And would be confused as transitional if they had never been observed in modern times.
If a meteor were to blast us back into the stone age, in a few thousand years our ancestors will have to listen all over again as to how dogs and cats are transitional species. If thy make it into the fossil record.
This is why there are distinct gaps. Not because so many are missing, but because variation can happen rapidly. How many steps did it take to go from wolf to German Shepard, to Doberman, to Rottweiler, to pug? So this might have occurred naturally over long periods of time without man, and would seem to imply transitional species if one did not know how they actually came about.
It is not variation of species I dispute, but one species changing into another species, something never once observed.
