Stylinodon

Stylinodon
Temporal range: 53.4–39.7 Ma early to middle Eocene
life restoration of Stylinodon mirus
skull of Stylinodon mirus
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Clade: Eutheria
Infraclass: Placentalia (?)
Order: †Taeniodonta
Superfamily: †Stylinodontoidea
Family: †Stylinodontidae
Subfamily: †Stylinodontinae
Tribe: †Stylinodontini
Marsh, 1875[2]
Genus: †Stylinodon
Marsh, 1874[1]
Type species
†Stylinodon mirus
Marsh, 1874
Synonyms[3]
synonyms of species:
  • S. mirus:
    • Calamodon cylindrifer (Cope, 1881)[4]
    • Stylinodon cylindrifer (Wortman, 1896)[5]
    • Stylinodon inexplicatus (Schoch & Lucas, 1981)[6]

Stylinodon ("tooth with pilar-like fibers")[7] is an extinct genus of taeniodonts from extinct tribe Stylinodontini within subfamily Stylinodontinae and family Stylinodontidae, that lived in North America from early to middle Eocene.[8][9][10][11]

With a weight between 54.9 kg (121 lb) and 109 kg (240 lb),[8] and length of 1.30 m (4 ft 3 in),[8] it had similar size to a pig. The skull suggests it had a blunt face, and a very short snout. Its canines had developed into huge, incisor-like root-less teeth. Stylinodon's molars were covered in enamel and continued growing throughout its life. Most likely, it fed on rough roots and tubers.[12]

  1. ^ O. C. Marsh (1874.) "Notice of new Tertiary mammals. III." American Journal of Science, series 3 7(41):531-534
  2. ^ Marsh, O. C. (1875.) "New Order of Eocene Mammals." American Journal of Science 9:221
  3. ^ J. Alroy (2002.) "Synonymies and reidentifications of North American fossil mammals."
  4. ^ E. D. Cope (1881). ""On the Vertebrata of the Wind River Eocene beds of Wyoming."". Bulletin of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey. 6 (1): 183–202.
  5. ^ Wortman, J. L. (1896.) "The Ganodonta and their relationship to the Edentata." Bulletin of the AMNH; vol. 9, article 6
  6. ^ Schoch, R. M.; Lucas, S. G. (1981). ""The systematics of Stylinodon, a middle to late Eocene taeniodont (Mammalia) from western North America."". J. Vertebr. Paleontol. 1: 175–83. doi:10.1080/02724634.1981.10011890. JSTOR 4522849.
  7. ^ Palmer, Theodore Sherman (1904). Index Generum Mammalium: A List of the Genera and Families of Mammals. U.S. Government Printing Office.
  8. ^ a b c Schoch, Robert M. (1986.) "Systematics, functional morphology and macroevolution of the extinct mammalian order Taeniodonta." Bulletin of the Peabody Museum of Natural History, (42).
  9. ^ McKenna, Malcolm C.; Bell, Susan K. (1997). Classification of Mammals Above the Species Level. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-11012-9. Retrieved 16 March 2015.
  10. ^ S. G. Lucas, R. M. Schoch, and T. E. Williamson (1998.) "Taeniodonta". In C. M. Janis, K. M. Scott, and L. L. Jacobs (eds.), "Evolution of Tertiary Mammals of North America, Volume 1: Terrestrial Carnivores, Ungulates, and Ungulate like Mammals", Cambridge University Press, 703 pages
  11. ^ Williamson, T. E.; Brusatte, S. L. (2013). Viriot, Laurent (ed.). "New Specimens of the Rare Taeniodont Wortmania (Mammalia: Eutheria) from the San Juan Basin of New Mexico and Comments on the Phylogeny and Functional Morphology of "Archaic" Mammals". PLOS ONE. 8 (9): e75886. Bibcode:2013PLoSO...875886W. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0075886. PMC 3786969. PMID 24098738.
  12. ^ Palmer, D., ed. (1999). The Marshall Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Animals. London: Marshall Editions. p. 237. ISBN 1-84028-152-9.