 | This article relies largely or entirely on a single source .(August 2021) |
| Pleuraspidotheriidae Temporal range: Palaeocene - Eocene, | |
|---|---|
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| Pleuraspidotherium aumonieri | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | † Condylarthra |
| Family: | † Pleuraspidotheriidae Zittel, 1892 |
| Genera | |
Pleuraspidotheriidae is a family of "condylarths" that lived in Europe from the Palaeocene to the Mid Eocene. [1]
Condylarthra is an informal group – previously considered an order – of extinct placental mammals, known primarily from the Paleocene and Eocene epochs. They are considered early, primitive ungulates. It is now largely considered to be a wastebasket taxon, having served as a dumping ground for classifying ungulates which had not been clearly established as part of either Perissodactyla or Cetartiodactyla, being composed thus of several unrelated lineages.
Pleuraspidotherium is an extinct genus of condylarth of the family Pleuraspidotheriidae, whose fossils have been found in the Late Paleocene Marnes de Montchenot of France and the Tremp Formation of modern Spain.
Orthaspidotherium was a European Paleocene genus of early herbivorous mammals of the family Pleuraspidotheriidae. It was included in the family Meniscotheriidae by Teilhard de Chardin in 1921-1922 and was subsequently separated into the family Pleuraspidotheriidae, before being placed in the family Phenacodontidae. The first complete skull of O. edwardsi was described in 2010, and the same paper once again places it in Pleuraspidotheriidae. A 2017 study further reiterates this view.