''Antarctodon'' is an
extinct genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial n ...
of
mammals from the
Early Eocene
In the geologic timescale the Ypresian is the oldest age (geology), age or lowest stage (stratigraphy), stratigraphic stage of the Eocene. It spans the time between , is preceded by the Thanetian Age (part of the Paleocene) and is followed by th ...
(late
Ypresian
In the geologic timescale the Ypresian is the oldest age or lowest stratigraphic stage of the Eocene. It spans the time between , is preceded by the Thanetian Age (part of the Paleocene) and is followed by the Eocene Lutetian Age. The Ypresian i ...
age). It is a basal
astrapotheria
Astrapotheria is an extinct order of South American and Antarctic hoofed mammals that existed from the late Paleocene to the Middle Miocene, ."The uruguaytheriine Astrapotheriidae from the rich middle Miocene Honda Group of the upper Magdalena ...
n which lived in what is now
Seymour Island
Seymour Island or Marambio Island, is an island in the chain of 16 major islands around the tip of the Graham Land on the Antarctic Peninsula. Graham Land is the closest part of Antarctica to South America. It lies within the section of the isla ...
,
Antarctic Peninsula
The Antarctic Peninsula, known as O'Higgins Land in Chile and Tierra de San MartÃn in Argentina, and originally as Graham Land in the United Kingdom and the Palmer Peninsula in the United States, is the northernmost part of mainland Antarctic ...
, at that moment still connected to
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the souther ...
where most of the astrapotherians were found. The
holotype
A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of seve ...
and only specimen
MLP 08-XI-30-1, an isolated right p4 or m1, was found in the Telm 5 Member of the
La Meseta Formation
The La Meseta Formation is a sedimentary sequence deposited during the Eocene. The formation is found on Seymour Island, Antarctica.
Description
La Meseta Formation lies unconformably on the Cretaceous Lopez de Bertodano Formation. It is an app ...
in
West Antarctica
West Antarctica, or Lesser Antarctica, one of the two major regions of Antarctica, is the part of that continent that lies within the Western Hemisphere, and includes the Antarctic Peninsula. It is separated from East Antarctica by the Transant ...
.
[''Antarctodon'']
at Fossilworks
Fossilworks is a portal which provides query, download, and analysis tools to facilitate access to the Paleobiology Database, a large relational database assembled by hundreds of paleontologists from around the world.
History
Fossilworks was cre ...
.org It was first named by Mariano Bond, Alejandro Kramarz, Ross D. E. MacPhee and Marcelo Reguero in
2011 and the
type species
In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen( ...
is ''Antarctodon sobrali''.
Phylogeny
Cladogram
A cladogram (from Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an evolutionary tree because it does not show how ancestors are related to ...
after M. Bond et al. 2011:
[
]
References
Bibliography
*
Meridiungulata
Eocene mammals
Cenozoic animals of Antarctica
Cenozoic mammals of Antarctica
Paleogene Antarctica
Fossils of Antarctica
Fossil taxa described in 2011
Extinct animals of Antarctica
Prehistoric placental genera
{{paleo-mammal-stub