''Bulganbaatar'' is an extinct

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

of early mammals from the

Upper Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the more recent of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''cret ...

. It is a member of the extinct order

Multituberculata Multituberculata (commonly known as multituberculates, named for the multiple tubercles of their teeth) is an extinct Order (biology), order of rodent-like mammals with a fossil record spanning over 130 million years. They first appeared in the M ...

. It lies within the suborder

Cimolodonta Cimolodonta is a clade of Multituberculata, multituberculate mammals that lived from the Cretaceous to the Eocene. They probably lived something of a rodent-like existence until their ecological niche was assumed by true rodents. The more basal ...

and is a member of the superfamily

Djadochtatherioidea Djadochtatherioidea is a superfamily of extinct mammals known from the upper Cretaceous and Paleocene of what is now Central Asia, North America and Europe. They were members of the order Multituberculata. These were very ecologically diverse; s ...

. The genus ''Bulganbaatar'' was named by

Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska Zofia Emilia Kielan-Jaworowska (25 April 1925 – 13 March 2015) was a Polish paleobiologist. In the mid-1960s, she led a series of Polish-Mongolian paleontological expeditions to the Gobi Desert. She was the first woman to serve on the executi ...

in 1974 after the village of Bulgan situated near Bayn Dzak. It is one of many Cretaceous aged mammal discoveries made by Kielan-Jaworowska and co-workers from Central Asian sites. Kielan-Jaworowska considered ''B.nemegtbaatorides'' to be the ancestor to the genus ''

Nemegtbaatar ''Nemegtbaatar'' is an extinct genus of mammal from the Upper Cretaceous Period of what is now Central Asia. It belonged to the order Multituberculata. ''Nemegtbaatar'' is within the suborder Cimolodonta and is a member of the superfamily Dja ...

'' due to similarity but more derived teeth in the latter, hence the names. According to Kielan-Jaworowska and Hurum, both ''Bulganbaatar'' and ''Nemegtbaatar'' are distinctive for exhibiting "elongation of the last upper premolar and molars, and an increase in their cusp numbers."

Fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

remains of ''Bulganbaatar'' have been found in Upper Cretaceous-aged

strata In geology and related fields, a stratum (: strata) is a layer of Rock (geology), rock or sediment characterized by certain Lithology, lithologic properties or attributes that distinguish it from adjacent layers from which it is separated by v ...

of the Djadokhta Formation of Mongolia and Kazakhstan. Their appearances range between 84 and 81 million years ago, from the late

Santonian The Santonian is an age in the geologic timescale or a chronostratigraphic stage. It is a subdivision of the Late Cretaceous Epoch or Upper Cretaceous Series. It spans the time between 86.3 ± 0.7 mya ( million years ago) and 83.6 ± 0.7 m ...

to the early

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. Campa ...

ages.Kielan-Jaworowska, 1974 p 31

Notes

References

* * * * * {{Taxonbar, from=Q3646798 Cimolodonta Late Cretaceous mammals of Asia Prehistoric mammal genera