''Eucosmodon'' is a genus of extinct

mammal Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or ...

from the Paleocene of

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 the Car ...

. It is a member of the extinct order of Multituberculata within the suborder of Cimolodonta, and the family Eucosmodontidae. This genus has partly also been known as

Neoplagiaulax ''Neoplagiaulax'' is a mammal genus from the Paleocene of Europe and North America. In the case of the latter continent, there may possibly be some slightly earlier, Upper Cretaceous material too. It existed in the age immediately following the e ...

. All known fossils of this small mammal are restricted to teeth.

Species

All known species of ''Eucosmodon'' have been found in the San Juan Basin of New Mexico (United States). * ''Eucosmodon americanus'' is a species of which Puercan (Paleocene)-age fossils have been found. Some, but not all, of this fossil material has been reclassified as ''E. primus''. This animal, which probably weighed something like 750 g, has been cited as a possible descendant of that species. * ''Eucosmodon molestus'' is a species of

Torrejonian The Torrejonian North American Stage on the geologic timescale is the North American faunal stage according to the North American Land Mammal Ages chronology (NALMA), typically set from 63,300,000 to 60,200,000 years BP lasting . It is usually ...

(Paleocene) age. It has been cited as a possible descendant of ''E. americanus''. * ''Eucosmodon primus'', also from the Puercan part of the Paleocene, have been found in the

Nacimiento Formation The Nacimiento Formation is a sedimentary rock formation found in the San Juan Basin of western New Mexico (United States). It has an age of 61 to 65.7 million years, corresponding to the early and middle Paleocene. The formation has yielded an ...

of the San Juan Basin. This species is based on fossils originally ascribed to ''E. americanus''. * A possible fourth species, ''Eucosmodon kuszmauli'', has also been named.

References

* (Most of this information has been derived from this page) * * * {{Taxonbar, from=Q5406227 Cimolodonts Paleocene mammals Paleocene genus extinctions Extinct mammals of North America Prehistoric mammal genera