Meniscoessus

Meniscoessus
Temporal range: Late Cretaceous
Meniscoessus skull in the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center, Woodland Park, Colorado
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: †Multituberculata
Family: †Cimolomyidae
Genus: †Meniscoessus
Cope, 1882
Species
  • †M. collomensis
  • †M. conquistus
  • †M. ferox
  • †M. intermedius
  • †M. major
  • †M. robustus
  • †M. seminoensis

Meniscoessus is a genus of extinct multituberculates from the Upper Cretaceous Period that lived in North America.

It is a member of the order Multituberculata, belonging to the suborder Cimolodonta and family Cimolomyidae. The multituberculates were primitive, rodent-like mammals occupying the modern rodent ecological niche. They were significant for having diverged early in mammalian evolution, co-existing with dinosaurs for ~100 million years, surviving through the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event and lasting until the end of the Paleogene, likely having been replaced by true rodents.[1][2][3][4]

Meniscoessus lived during the Santonian, Campanian and Maastrichtian ages of the Upper Cretaceous. This was a period of significant diversification of multiturbiculates, and evidence that contradicts the popular misconception that mammals were unable to thrive due to being outcompeted by the dinosaurs.[5][6][7] They are useful as index fossils for the Judithian, Edmontonian, and Lancian faunal stages.[8] Like most early mammals, Meniscoessus fossils mainly consist of teeth. Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska and Jørn Hurum considered them to be the "best known" members of the Cimolomyidae.[9]

  1. ^ Weil
  2. ^ Prothero, 2006, pp 55-61, 157
  3. ^ Benton 2015, pp 330,337-338
  4. ^ Wilson et al, 2012
  5. ^ Benton, 2015, pg 338
  6. ^ Carroll, 1988, pg 419
  7. ^ Wilson et al, 2012, pg 459
  8. ^ Cifelli et al, 2004
  9. ^ Kielan-Jaworowska and Hurum, 2001, pg 408