''Argentoconodon'' (meaning "

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

cone

tooth A tooth ( : teeth) is a hard, calcified structure found in the jaws (or mouths) of many vertebrates and used to break down food. Some animals, particularly carnivores and omnivores, also use teeth to help with capturing or wounding prey, t ...

") 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 nom ...

of theriimorph mammal from the Cañadón Asfalto Formation of the

Cañadón Asfalto Basin The Cañadón Asfalto Basin ( es, Cuenca de Cañadón Asfalto) is an irregularly shaped sedimentary basin located in north-central Patagonia, Argentina. The basin stretches from and partly covers the North Patagonian Massif in the north, a high for ...

Patagonia Patagonia () refers to a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and g ...

. 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 ''Jugulator'' is the thirteenth studio album by English heavy metal band Judas Priest. It was released in Japan on 16 October 1997 and the rest of the world on 28 October 1997. It was their first studio album since ''Painkiller'' in 1990 an ...

'' and ''

Volaticotherium ''Volaticotherium antiquum'' (meaning "ancient gliding beast") is an extinct, gliding, insectivorous mammal that lived in Asia during the Jurassic period, around 164 mya. It is the only member of the genus ''Volaticotherium''. The discovery of ...

'' within the family

Triconodontidae Triconodontidae is an extinct family of small, carnivorous mammals belonging to the order Eutriconodonta, endemic to what would become Asia, Europe, North America and probably also Africa and South America during the Jurassic through Cretaceous p ...

, and possibly also '' Triconolestes''.

Aerial locomotion

Several postcranial similarities to ''

'' suggest that ''Argentoconodon'' was capable of gliding. In particular, its femur shares the same shape and proportions as its more complete relative, being highly specialised and without a femoral head, being less competent in rotational movement but more useful in extending the leg and resisting flight stresses. ''Argentoconodons spatio-temporal distribution has been noted as being unusual, in that it is not only a rare Early Jurassic eutriconodont, but also one of the only two

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 sout ...

n members of this group, the other being the slightly younger '' Condorodon''; other mammals in the Cañadon Asfalto Formation are various

australosphenida The Australosphenida are a clade of mammals, containing mammals with tribosphenic molars, known from the Jurassic to Mid-Cretaceous of Gondwana. They are thought to have acquired their tribosphenic molars independently from those of Tribosphenid ...

ns and a putative allothere. This has been considered worthy of interest in the future.

Diet

Like most eutriconodonts ''Argentoconodon'' was most likely animalivorous, its molars adapted to shear. In a study detailing Mesozoic mammal diets it ranks among carnivorous species. This is further corroborated by another study on Mesozoic mammal mandibles, where in plots among carnivorous rather than insectivorous taxa.

References

Eutriconodonts Gliding animals Jurassic mammals of South America Jurassic Argentina Fossils of Argentina Cañadón Asfalto Formation Fossil taxa described in 2007 Taxa named by Guillermo W. Rougier Taxa named by Alberto Garrido Taxa named by Leandro Gaetano Taxa named by Pablo F. Puerta Taxa named by Cynthia Corbitt Taxa named by Michael J. Novacek Prehistoric mammal genera {{Jurassic-mammal-stub