Late-surviving stem mammal links the lowermost Cretaceous of North America and Gondwana

Adam K. Huttenlocker (), David M. Grossnickle, James I. Kirkland, Julia A. Schultz and Zhe-Xi Luo ()
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Adam K. Huttenlocker: University of Southern California
David M. Grossnickle: The University of Chicago
James I. Kirkland: Utah Geological Survey
Julia A. Schultz: The University of Chicago
Zhe-Xi Luo: The University of Chicago

Nature, 2018, vol. 558, issue 7708, 108-112

Abstract: Abstract Haramiyida was a successful clade of mammaliaforms, spanning the Late Triassic period to at least the Late Jurassic period, but their fossils are scant outside Eurasia and Cretaceous records are controversial1–4. Here we report, to our knowledge, the first cranium of a large haramiyidan from the basal Cretaceous of North America. This cranium possesses an amalgam of stem mammaliaform plesiomorphies and crown mammalian apomorphies. Moreover, it shows dental traits that are diagnostic of isolated teeth of supposed multituberculate affinities from the Cretaceous of Morocco, which have been assigned to the enigmatic ‘Hahnodontidae’. Exceptional preservation of this specimen also provides insights into the evolution of the ancestral mammalian brain. We demonstrate the haramiyidan affinities of Gondwanan hahnodontid teeth, removing them from multituberculates, and suggest that hahnodontid mammaliaforms had a much wider, possibly Pangaean distribution during the Jurassic–Cretaceous transition.

Date: 2018
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DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0126-y

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