The study of the evolution of the mam-malian middle ear has been fueled by con-tinuous discoveries of Mesozoic fossils in the last two decades.Wang et al.[1]re-cently reported a specimen of Vilevolodon diplomylos[2]that adds to the increasing knowledge about the auditory apparatus of\'haramiyidans\',an extinct Mesozoic group of mammaliaforms.The authors hypothesized that a middle ear with a monotreme-like incus and malleus and incudomallear articulation was primitive for mammals,which challenges the con-vention that the monotreme middle ear is specialized[3]or autapomorphic[4]in mammals.We raise concerns about ter-minology(see Supplementary Data)and identification of the incus presented by Wang et al.and show that their analysis does not support their preferred hypoth-esis but favors the alternative,which is consistent with Mao et al.\'s hypothesis that the braced hinge joint is primitive for several lineages within Mammalia[5].