Miopetaurista

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Miopetaurista
Temporal range: Miocene–Pliocene
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Rodentia
Family: Sciuridae
Tribe: Pteromyini
Genus:† Miopetaurista
Kretzoi, 1962
Species

Miopetaurista crusafonti
Miopetaurista dehmi
Miopetaurista diescalidus
Miopetaurista gaillardi
Miopetaurista gibberosa
Miopetaurista lappi
Miopetaurista neogrivensis
Miopetaurista thaleri
Miopetaurista tobieni
Miopetaurista webbi

Miopetaurista is an extinct genus of flying squirrels in the family Sciuridae. Fossils of this genus have been found from the Miocene and Pliocene of Europe (France, Germany [1] ), Asia (China [2] ), and North America (Florida, [3] [4] Tennessee [5] [6] [7] ).

Description

A partial skeleton from the Miocene of Spain indicates that Miopetaurista very closely resembles living Petaurista giant flying squirrels in overall anatomy and therefore probably ecology. [3]

References

  1. ↑ Grau-Camats, Montserrat; Bertrand, Ornella C.; Prieto, Jérôme; López-Torres, Sergi; Silcox, Mary T.; Casanovas-Vilar, Isaac (2022). "A Miopetaurista (Rodentia, Sciuridae) cranium from the Middle Miocene of Bavaria (Germany) and brain evolution in flying squirrels". Papers in Palaeontology. 8 (4): e1454. Bibcode:2022PPal....8E1454G. doi:10.1002/spp2.1454. hdl: 20.500.11820/28153e97-df31-407b-b3b2-48e04aaa9152 . ISSN   2056-2802.
  2. ↑ "Fossilworks: Miopetaurista".
  3. 1 2 Casanovas-Vilar, Isaac; Garcia-Porta, Joan; Fortuny, Josep; Sanisidro, Óscar; Prieto, Jérôme; Querejeta, Marina; Llácer, Sergio; Robles, Josep M.; Bernardini, Federico; Alba, David M. (2018-10-09). "Oldest skeleton of a fossil flying squirrel casts new light on the phylogeny of the group". eLife. 7 e39270. doi: 10.7554/eLife.39270 . ISSN   2050-084X. PMC   6177260 . PMID   30296996.
  4. ↑ Webb, Sawney David (1974). Pleistocene Mammals of Florida. University Presses of Florida. ISBN   978-0-8130-0361-0.
  5. ↑ Grau-Camats, Montserrat; Casanovas-Vilar, Isaac; Crowe, Cheyenne J.; Samuels, Joshua X. (2025-02-21). "Gliding between continents: a review of the North American record of the giant flying squirrel Miopetaurista (Rodentia, Sciuridae) with the description of new material from the Gray Fossil Site (Tennessee)" . Journal of Mammalian Evolution. 32 (1): 8. doi:10.1007/s10914-025-09751-w. ISSN   1573-7055.
  6. ↑ Randall, Ian (2025-02-26). "North America had giant, cat-sized flying squirrels 4.75 million years ago". Newsweek . Retrieved 2025-03-26.
  7. ↑ Pester, Patrick (2025-02-28). "Giant flying squirrels as big as cats once lived in Tennessee". livescience.com. Retrieved 2025-03-26.
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