Maiopatagium

Maiopatagium
Temporal range: Bathonian-Oxfordian
~165–153 Ma
Holotype specimen (BMNH 2940) of M. furculiferum, National Natural History Museum of China
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Synapsida
Clade: Therapsida
Clade: Cynodontia
Clade: Mammaliaformes
Order: †Haramiyida
Family: †Eleutherodontidae
Genus: †Maiopatagium
Luo et al., 2017
Species
  • †Maiopatagium furculiferum
    Luo et al., 2017
  • †Maiopatagium sibiricum
    Averianov, et al., 2019
CGI reconstruction of a gliding M. furculiferum

Maiopatagium is an extinct genus of gliding euharamiyids which existed in Asia during the Jurassic period.[1] It possessed a patagium between its limbs and presumably had similar lifestyle to living flying squirrels and colugos. The type species is Maiopatagium furculiferum, which was described from the Tiaojishan Formation by Zhe-Xi Luo in 2017; it lived in what is now the Liaoning region of China during the late Jurassic (Oxfordian age).[2]Maiopatagium and Vilevolodon, described concurrently, offer clues to the ways various synapsids have taken to the skies over evolutionary time scales.[3] A second species, M. sibiricum, was described from the Bathonian aged Itat Formation in western Siberia, Russia in 2019[4]

  1. ^ Meng, Qing-Jin; Grossnickle, David M.; Liu, Di; Zhang, Yu-Guang; Neander, April I.; Ji, Qiang; Luo, Zhe-Xi (2017). "New gliding mammaliaforms from the Jurassic". Nature. 548 (7667): 291–296. doi:10.1038/nature23476. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 28792929. S2CID 205259206.
  2. ^ Zhe-Xi Luo; Qing-Jin Meng; David M. Grossnickle; Di Liu; April I. Neander; Yu-Guang Zhang; Qiang Ji (2017). "New evidence for mammaliaform ear evolution and feeding adaptation in a Jurassic ecosystem". Nature. 548 (7667): 326–329. Bibcode:2017Natur.548..326L. doi:10.1038/nature23483. PMID 28792934. S2CID 4463476.
  3. ^ Rare Fossils Reveal New Species of Ancient Gliding Mammals, National Geographic: [1]
  4. ^ Averianov, Alexander O.; Martin, Thomas; Lopatin, Alexey V.; Schultz, Julia A.; Schellhorn, Rico; Krasnolutskii, Sergei; Skutschas, Pavel; Ivantsov, Stepan (2019-11-05). "Haramiyidan mammals from the Middle Jurassic of Western Siberia, Russia. Part 1: Shenshouidae and Maiopatagium". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 39 (4): e1669159. doi:10.1080/02724634.2019.1669159. ISSN 0272-4634. S2CID 209439988.