Spalacotheriidae is a family of extinct mammals belonging to the

paraphyletic In taxonomy, a group is paraphyletic if it consists of the group's last common ancestor and most of its descendants, excluding a few monophyletic subgroups. The group is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In ...

group ' Symmetrodonta'. They lasted from the

Early Cretaceous The Early Cretaceous (geochronology, geochronological name) or the Lower Cretaceous (chronostratigraphy, chronostratigraphic name), is the earlier or lower of the two major divisions of the Cretaceous. It is usually considered to stretch from 145& ...

to the

Campanian The Campanian is the fifth of six ages of the Late Cretaceous Epoch on the geologic timescale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). In chronostratigraphy, it is the fifth of six stages in the Upper Cretaceous Series. Campani ...

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

and

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

. Spalacotheriids are characterised by having molar teeth with three molar cusps sitting at acute angles to one another.Martin, T., 2018. 6. Mesozoic mammals—early mammalian diversity and ecomorphological adaptations. In Mammalian evolution, diversity and systematics (pp. 199-300). De Gruyter. The shape of their teeth as well as their long lower jaw indicate a

carnivorous A carnivore , or meat-eater (Latin, ''caro'', genitive ''carnis'', meaning meat or "flesh" and ''vorare'' meaning "to devour"), is an animal or plant whose food and energy requirements derive from animal tissues (mainly muscle, fat and other ...

insectivorous A robber fly eating a hoverfly An insectivore is a carnivorous animal or plant that eats insects. An alternative term is entomophage, which can also refer to the human practice of eating insects. The first vertebrate insectivores were ...

diet. A sub-group of Spalacotheriidae, the spalacolestines, lack a Meckelian groove in the jaw, indicating that they had a modern ear anatomy.

Genera

* '' Akidolestes'' * '' Infernolestes'' * ''

Spalacotherium ''Spalacotherium'' is a genus of extinct mammal from the Early Cretaceous of Europe. The type species ''Spalacotherium tricuspidens'' was originally named by Richard Owen in 1854, and its material includes maxillary and dentary fragments an ...

'' * '' Symmetrolestes'' * Spalacolestinae ** '' Aliaga'' ** '' Heishanlestes'' ** '' Lactodens'' ** '' Shalbaatar'' ** '' Spalacolestes'' ** '' Spalacotheridium'' ** '' Spalacotheroides'' ** '' Symmetrodontoides'' ** '' Yaverlestes''

References

Symmetrodonta Prehistoric mammal families Cretaceous mammals {{cretaceous-mammal-stub