Kolponomos

Kolponomos Temporal range: Early Miocene PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Skull
Mandible
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Carnivora
Family:	†Amphicynodontidae
Genus:	†Kolponomos Stirton, 1960
Species
K. clallamensis Stirton, 1960 K. newportensis Tedford et al., 1994

Kolponomos is an extinct genus of carnivoran mammal that existed in the Late Arikareean North American Land Mammal Age, early Miocene epoch, about 20 million years ago. It was likely a marine mammal.^[1] The genus was erected in 1960 by Ruben A. Stirton, a paleontologist at the University of California Museum of Paleontology, Berkeley, for the species K. clallamensis, on the basis of a partial skull and jaw found on the Olympic Peninsula. At the time, Stirton questionably assigned it to Procyonidae, its systematic position remained problematic until the discovery of more fossils including a nearly complete cranium from the original locality of K. clallamensis which helped identify it as part of the group from which pinnipeds evolved.^[2]