Amphidontidae

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Amphidontidae
Temporal range: Early Jurassic-Early Cretaceous, ~200–125  Ma
Scientific classification Red Pencil Icon.png
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Clade: Eutriconodonta
Family: Amphidontidae
Simpson, 1925
Genera

The Amphidontidae are a family of extinct mammals from the Early Cretaceous, belonging to the triconodonts. It contains most of the species previously belonged to Amphilestidae. [1]

Contents

Phylogeny

Cladogram after Marisol Montellano, James A. Hopson, James M. Clark (2008) [2] and Gao et al. (2010). [3]

 Amphidontidae

Aploconodon

Comodon

Hakusanodon

Juchilestes

Amphidon

Gobiotheriodon

Manchurodon

Nakunodon

Taxonomy

Based on the works by Mikko Haaramo [4] and the Palaeofile website. [5]

Related Research Articles

<i>Repenomamus</i> Extinct genus of mammals

Repenomamus is a genus of opossum- to badger-sized gobiconodontid mammal containing two species, Repenomamus robustus and Repenomamus giganticus. Both species are known from fossils found in China that date to the early Cretaceous period, about 125-123.2 million years ago. R. robustus is one of several Mesozoic mammals for which there is good evidence that it fed on vertebrates, including dinosaurs, though it is not possible to determine if it actively hunted live dinosaurs or scavenged dead ones. R. giganticus is among the largest mammals known from the Mesozoic era.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eutriconodonta</span> Extinct order of mammals

Eutriconodonta is an order of early mammals. Eutriconodonts existed in Asia, Africa, Europe, North and South America during the Jurassic and the Cretaceous periods. The order was named by Kermack et al. in 1973 as a replacement name for the paraphyletic Triconodonta.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haramiyida</span> Extinct order of mammaliaforms

Haramiyida is a possibly polyphyletic order of mammaliaform cynodonts or mammals of controversial taxonomic affinites. Their teeth, which are by far the most common remains, resemble those of the multituberculates. However, based on Haramiyavia, the jaw is less derived; and at the level of evolution of earlier basal mammals like Morganucodon and Kuehneotherium, with a groove for ear ossicles on the dentary. If they are early multituberculates, they would be the longest lived mammalian clade of all time. However, a more recent study, in November 2015, may dispute this and suggested the Haramiyida were not crown mammals, but were part of an earlier offshoot of mammaliaformes instead. It is also disputed whether the Late Triassic species are closely related to the Jurassic and Cretaceous members belonging to Euharamiyida/Eleutherodontida, as some phylogenetic studes recover the two groups as unrelated, recovering the Triassic haramiyidians as non-mammalian cynodonts, while recovering the Euharamiyida as crown-group mammals closely related to multituberculates.

<i>Gobiconodon</i> Extinct genus of mammals

Gobiconodon is an extinct genus of carnivorous mammal from the Middle Jurassic to Early Cretaceous. It weighed 5.4 kilograms (12 lb), had a skull of 10 cm (3.9 in) in length, and had 35 cm (14 in) in presacral body length. It was one of the largest mammals known from the Mesozoic. Like other gobiconodontids, it possesses several speciations towards carnivory, such as shearing molar teeth, large canine-like incisors and powerful jaw and forelimb musculature, indicating that it probably fed on vertebrate prey; rather uniquely among predatory mammals and other eutriconodonts, the lower canines were vestigial, with the first lower incisor pair having become massive and canine-like. Like the larger Repenomamus there might be some evidence of scavenging.

Deltatheroida is an extinct group of basal metatherians that were distantly related to modern marsupials. The majority of known members of the group lived in the Cretaceous; one species, Gurbanodelta kara, is known from the late Paleocene (Gashatan) of China. Their fossils are restricted to Central Asia and North America. This order can be defined as all metatherians closer to Deltatheridium than to Marsupialia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trechnotheria</span> Clade of mammals

Trechnotheria is a group of mammals that includes the therians and some fossil mammals from the Mesozoic Era. In the Jurassic through Cretaceous periods, the group was endemic to what would be Asia and Africa.

Pantotheria is an abandoned taxon of Mesozoic mammals. This group is now considered an informal "wastebasket" taxon and has been replaced by Dryolestida as well as other groups. It is sometimes treated as an infraclass and older books refer to it as being related to symmetrodonts. One classification makes it an infraclass with a single order, Eupantotheria.

Amphidon is an extinct genus of Late Jurassic mammal from the Morrison Formation. It is present in stratigraphic zone 5. The only species in the genus is Amphidon aequicrurius, found by Simpson in 1925.

Comodon is an extinct genus of Late Jurassic mammal from the Morrison Formation of Wyoming. Fossils of this taxon are present in stratigraphic zone 5.

Juchilestes is an amphidontid mammal genus from the early Cretaceous. It lived in what is now the Beipiao of western Liaoning, eastern China. It is known from the holotype D2607, which consists of three-dimensionally preserved, partial skull with mandibles and some teeth. It was found in 2004 from the Lujiatun Site of the Yixian Formation. It was first named by Chun-Ling Gao, Gregory P. Wilson, Zhe-Xi Luo, A. Murat Maga, Qingjin Meng and Xuri Wang in 2010 and the type species is Juchilestes liaoningensis.

Acinacodus is an extinct genus of amphidontid "eutriconodont" which existed in Shestakovo 1 locality in Western Siberia, Russia during the early Cretaceous period. It was described by A. V. Lopatin, E. N. Maschenko and A. O. Averianov in 2010, and the type species is Acinacodus tagaricus.

<i>Necrolestes</i> Extinct family of mammals

Necrolestes is an extinct genus of mammals, which lived during the Early Miocene in what is now Argentine Patagonia. It is the most recent known genus of Meridiolestida, an extinct group of mammals more closely related to therians than to monotremes that dominated South America during the Late Cretaceous. It contains two species, N. patagonensis and N. mirabilis, The type species N. patagonensis was named by Florentino Ameghino in 1891 based on remains found by his brother, Carlos Ameghino in Patagonia. Fossils of Necrolestes have been found in the Sarmiento and Santa Cruz Formations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gobiconodonta</span> Extinct order of mammals

Gobiconodonta is an order of extinct mammals known from the Early Jurassic to early Late Cretaceous. They are generally held to be part of Eutriconodonta.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ilek Formation</span> Geologic formation in Western Siberia, Russia

The Ilek Formation is a Lower Cretaceous geologic formation in Western Siberia. Many different fossils have been recovered from the formation. It overlies the Late Jurassic Tyazhin Formation and underlies the Albian Kiya Formation.

Argentoconodon is an extinct genus of theriimorph mammal from the Cañadón Asfalto Formation of the Cañadón Asfalto Basin in Patagonia. When originally described, it was known only from a single molariform tooth, which possessed a combination of primitive and derived features. The tooth is currently held in the Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio, where it was given the specimen number MPEF-PV 1877. New material described in 2011 show that Argentoconodon was similar to Ichthyoconodon, Jugulator and Volaticotherium within the family Triconodontidae, and possibly also Triconolestes.

<i>Ichthyoconodon</i> Extinct family of mammals

Ichthyoconodon is an extinct genus of eutriconodont mammal from the Lower Cretaceous of Morocco. It is notable for having been found in a unique marine location, and the shape of its teeth suggests an unusual, potentially fish-eating ecological niche. Analysis suggests it is part of a group of gliding mammals that includes Volaticotherium.

Jugulator is an extinct genus of mammals from the Cretaceous of North America. It contains one species, Jugulator amplissimus. A eutriconodont, it is known from the Cedar Mountain Formation, and is both a large sized and possibly ecologically specialised taxon, showcasing the diversity of mammals in the Mesozoic.

<i>Triconodon</i> Extinct family of mammals

Triconodon is a genus of extinct mammal from the Early Cretaceous of England and France with two known species: T. mordax and T. averianovi. First described in 1859 by Richard Owen, it is the type genus for the order Triconodonta, a group of mammals characterised by their three-cusped (triconodont) molar teeth. Since then, this "simplistic" type of dentition has been understood to be either ancestral for mammals or else to have evolved multiple times, rendering "triconodonts" a paraphyletic or polyphyletic assemblage respectively, but several lineages of "triconodont" mammals do form a natural, monophyletic group, known as Eutriconodonta, of which Triconodon is indeed part of.

Alticonodon is a genus of extinct mammal from the Late Cretaceous of North America. It is the geologically youngest known eutriconodont, and is a fairly more specialised animal than earlier representatives of this clade.

References

  1. 1 2 A. V. Lopatin; E. N. Maschenko & A. O. Averianov (2010). "A new genus of triconodont mammals from the Early Cretaceous of Western Siberia". Doklady Biological Sciences. 433 (1): 282–285. doi:10.1134/S0012496610040137. PMID   20711878. S2CID   6769651.
  2. Marisol Montellano; James A. Hopson; James M. Clark (2008). "Late Early Jurassic Mammaliaforms from Huizachal Canyon, Tamaulipas, México". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 28 (4): 1130–1143. doi:10.1671/0272-4634-28.4.1130. S2CID   128782275.
  3. Chun-Ling Gao; Gregory P. Wilson; Zhe-Xi Luo; A. Murat Maga; Qingjin Meng & Xuri Wang (2010). "A new mammal skull from the Lower Cretaceous of China with implications for the evolution of obtuse-angled molars and 'amphilestid' eutriconodonts". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 277 (1679): 237–246. doi:10.1098/rspb.2009.1014. PMC   2842676 . PMID   19726475.
  4. Mikko's Phylogeny Archive Haaramo, Mikko (2007). "Holotheria – holotheres" . Retrieved 30 December 2015.
  5. Paleofile.com (net, info) "Paleofile.com". Archived from the original on 2016-01-11. Retrieved 2015-12-30.. "Taxonomic lists- Mammals". Archived from the original on 11 January 2016. Retrieved 30 December 2015.