On Mon, 23 Nov 1998, Loren Cordain wrote: "Females of our species are quite
unusual in the animal world; except for a single species of whale, no other
mammal experiences menopause."

Maybe we are less unique....
The following article quotes some other female mammals with a
post-reproductive phase:


Reproductive cessation in female mammals.

Packer C, Tatar M, Collins A

Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota, St
Paul 55108, USA. [log in to unmask]

In female mammals, fertility declines abruptly at an advanced age. The
human menopause is one example, but reproductive cessation has also been
documented in non-human primates, rodents, whales, dogs, rabbits, elephants
and domestic livestock. The human menopause has been considered an
evolutionary adaptation, assuming that elderly women avoid the increasing
complications of continued childbirth to better nurture their current
children and grandchildren. But an abrupt reproductive decline might be
only a non-adaptive by-product of life-history patterns. Because so many
individuals die from starvation, disease and predation, detrimental genetic
traits can persist (or even be favoured) as long as their deleterious
effects are delayed until an advanced age is reached, and, for a given
pattern of mortality, there should be an age by which selection would be
too weak to prevent the onset of reproductive senescence. We provide a
systematic test of these alternatives using field data from two species in
which grandmothers frequently engage in kin-directed behaviour. Both
species show abrupt age-specific changes in reproductive performance that
are characteristic of menopause. But elderly females do not suffer
increased mortality costs of reproduction, nor do post-reproductive females
enhance the fitness of grandchildren or older children. Instead,
reproductive cessation appears to result from senescence.

Nature 1998 Apr 23;392(6678):807-11


Ruediger Hoeflechner