请教OG143,independently from/of 的区别

以下是引用Lorena在2003-9-22 18:11:00的发言：
看了半天也没弄明白OG的解释,请高手帮忙用中文指点一下, many............thanks

143. Recently discovered fossil remains strongly suggest that the Australian egg-laying mammals of today are a branch of the main stem of mammalian evolu­tion rather than developing independently from a common ancestor of mammals more than 220 mil­lion years ago.
a. rather than developing independently from
b. rather than a type that developed independently from
c. rather than a type whose development was independent of
d. instead of developing independently from
e. instead of a development that was indepen­dent of