Saint Bathans mammal
The Saint Bathans mammal is a currently unnamed extinct primitive
Discovery
The Saint Bathans mammal is currently represented by three specimens in Te Papa: NMNZ S.40958, NMNZ S.41866, and NMNZ S.42214, composed of two lower jaw fragments and a femur respectively. It was part of an assemblage of fossils recovered in Saint Bathans in 1978, in what would later be understood to be the Bannockburn Formation (Manuherikia Group), and first described in 2006.[1]
Description
Like most small mammal fossils, the Saint Bathans mammal material is rather incomplete, with only a lower jaw fragment and femur being known.
The lower jaws are toothless, though the presence of deep tooth sockets suggests that they were toothed in life and that the teeth were lost post-mortem. They bear a long fused
The femur possesses a round
Phylogeny
Because of the incomplete material, it is very hard to understand the position of this taxon within
Ecology
The Bannockburn Formation depicts a warm temperate or subtropical lakeside environment, surrounded by herbaceous
Besides the Saint Bathans mammal, this fauna also includes
References
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Worthy, Trevor H.; Tennyson, Alan J. D.; Archer, Michael; Musser, Anne M.; Hand, Suzanne J.; Jones, Craig; Douglas, Barry J.; McNamara, James A.; Beck, Robin M. D. (2006). "Miocene mammal reveals a Mesozoic ghost lineage on insular New Zealand, southwest Pacific". PNAS. 103 (51): 19419–19423. PMID 17159151.
- ^ Worthy, Trevor H.; et al. (2013). Miocene fossils show that kiwi (Apteryx, Apterygidae) are probably not phyletic dwarves (PDF). Paleornithological Research 2013, Proceedings of the 8th International Meeting of the Society of Avian Paleontology and Evolution. Retrieved 9 March 2014.
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Hand, Suzanne J.; Worthy, Trevor H.; Archer, Michael; Worthy, Jennifer P.; Tennyson, Alan J. D.; Scofield, R. Paul (2013). "Miocene mystacinids (Chiroptera, Noctilionoidea) indicate a long history for endemic bats in New Zealand". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 33 (6): 1442–1448. S2CID 85925160.
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Hand, Suzanne J.; Beck, Robin M. D.; Archer, Michael; Simmons, Nancy B.; Gunnell, Gregg F.; Scofield, R. Paul; Tennyson, Alan J. D.; De Pietri, Vanesa L.; Salisbury, Steven W.; Worthy, Trevor H. (2018). "A new, large-bodied omnivorous bat (Noctilionoidea: Mystacinidae) reveals lost morphological and ecological diversity since the Miocene in New Zealand". Scientific Reports. 8 (1): 235. PMID 29321543.