Didymoconus
Didymoconus Temporal range:
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Holotype skull of D. colgatei | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Family: | †Didymoconidae |
Subfamily: | † Didymoconinae
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Genus: | †Didymoconus Matthew & Granger, 1924 |
Type species | |
†Didymoconus colgatei Matthew & Granger, 1924
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Other species | |
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Synonyms | |
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Didymoconus is an extinct genus of mammal that lived during the early Oligocene epoch. It was endemic to Asia, and its fossils have been found in Mongolia, China and Kazakhstan.[1] It is the type genus of the Didymoconidae, a family of eutherian mammals with uncertain taxonomic affinities.[2]
History of discovery
Fossilized remains of Didymoconus were first discovered during the Central Asiatic Expeditions of the American Museum of Natural History in the 1920s. In 1924, Matthew & Granger erected the genus with D. colgatei as the type species, while also erecting the species D. berkeyi. The holotype of D. colgatei is a skull (AMNH 19124), and two lower jaws (AMNH 19003 & 19004) were established as paratypes, while the type specimen of D. berkeyi is a set of lower jaws (AMNH 19001). All these specimens were collected from the Hsanda Gol Formation of Mongolia.[3]
Gromova (1960) erected the genus Tshelkaria with T. rostrata as the type species, the holotype for this species being collected from
In 1997, Lopatin assigned a fourth species to the genus. Named Didymoconus gromovae, it is named after paleontologist V.I. Gromova. The holotype of this species is a fragment of the left
References
- ISSN 0272-4634.
- ^ ISSN 0077-7749.
- ^ Matthew, William Diller; Granger, Walter (1924-01-15). "New Carnivora from the Tertiary of Mongolia". American Museum Novitates (104).
- ^ Gromova, V.I. (1960). "A new family (Tshelkariidae) of primitive carnivores from the Oligocene of Asia". Trudy Paleontol. Inst. Akad. Nauk SSSR. 77: 41–78.
- ^ Lopatin, Alexey (January 1997). "New Oligocene Didymoconidae (Mesonychia, Mammalia) from Mongolia and Kazakhstan". Paleontological Journal. 31 (1): 108–119.