Meridiolestida
| Meridiolestida Temporal range: Possible Early Cretaceous record
| |
|---|---|
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| Skull of Necrolestes | |
| |
| Life restoration and skull and jaws of Peligrotherium | |
Scientific classification 
| |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Clade: | Cladotheria |
| Clade: | †Meridiolestida Rougier, 2011 |
| Subgroups | |
|
See text | |
Meridiolestida is an extinct clade of
bunodont (low and rounded) teeth, and were likely herbivores/omnivores.[3]
Meridiolestidans are generally classified within paraphyletic, with the meridiolestidans being more or less closely related to therian mammals than dryolestidans are.[6][7] Meridiolestidans differ from dryolestidans in the absence of a parastylar hook on the molariform teeth and the lack of a Meckelian groove
.
Lakotalestes from the Early Cretaceous of North America, originally identified as a dryolestid, was noted in one paper to have a tooth morphology closer to that of meridiolestidans.[8] A possible meridiolestidan is known from a tooth fragment, now lost, found in the La Meseta Formation from the Eocene of the Antarctic Peninsula.[9] The latest surviving meridiolestidan was the mole-like burrowing insectivore Necrolestes from the Miocene of Patagonia.[6]
Taxa
- †Amarillodon[10]
- †Austrotriconodon
- †Bondesius[11]
- †Casamiquelia[11]
- †Lakotalestes?[8]
- †Paraungulatum[11]
- †Quirogatherium[11]
- †Cronopioidea[11][12]
- †Mesungulatoidea[12]