Home > Multituberculata
The Multituberculata are the only major branch of mammals to have become completely extinct, with no living descendants. Rodent-like, they first appeared in the Middle Jurassic, and became extinct in the early Oligocene.
They are named for their teeth, which had many cusps (tubercles) arranged in rows, hence multituberculates.
About 80 genera of multituberculata are known, including Lambdopsalis, Ptilodus and MeniscoessusMeniscoessus Scientific classification Kingdom: Animalia Therapsida Class: Mammalia Order: Multituberculata Family: Cimolomyidae Genus: Meniscoessus Species M. collomensis M. conquistus M. ferox M. intermedius M. major M. robustus M. seminoensis Ref..
1 Groups within Multituberculata
In their 2001 study, Kielan-Jaworowska and Hurum found that most multituberculates could be referred to two suborders: " Plagiaulacida" and Cimolodonta. The exception is the genus ArginbaatarArginbaatridae Scientific classification Kingdom: Animalia Therapsida Class: Mammalia Order: Multituberculata Family: Arginbaataridae Genera Arginbaatar Ref. Arginbaatar was a Lower Cretaceous mammal from Mongolia. It was a member of Multituberculata, an, which shares characteristics with both groups.
"Plagiaulacida" is paraphyletic; it is an informal suborder which doesn't satisfy the cladisticCladistics or phylogenetic systematics is a branch of biology that determines the evolutionary relationships of living things based on derived similarities. It forms the basis for most modern systems of classification, which seek to group organisms by evo criterion of consisting of an ancestor and all of its descendants. Its members are the more basal multis. Chronologically, they ranged from perhaps the Middle Jurassic (unnamed material), until the Lower Cretaceous. This group is further subdivided into three informal groupings: the Allodontid line, the Paulchoffatiid line, and the Plagiaulacid line.
Cimolodonta is apparently a natural ( monophyleticIn phylogenetics, a group is monophyletic (greek: of one stem) if all organisms in that group are known to have developed from a common ancestral form, and all descendants of that form are included in the group. Taxonomic groups that contain organisms but) suborder. This includes the more derived multis, which have been identified from the Lower Cretaceous to the EoceneThe Eocene epoch (55-37 mya) is a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Tertiary period in the Cenozoic era. The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Paleocene epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene epoch. The start of. Recognized are the superfamilies DjadochtatherioideaDjadochtatherioidea Scientific classification Kingdom: Animalia Therapsida Class: Mammalia Order: Multituberculata Superfamily: Djadochtatherioidea Families Sloanbaataridae Djadochtatheriidae Other genera Bulganbaatar Chulsanbaatar Nemegtbaatar Ref. Djado, Taeniolabidoidea, Ptilodontoidea and the Paracimexomys group.
Additionally, there are the families Cimolomyidae, Boffiidae, Eucosmodontidae, Kogaionidae, Microcosmodontidae and the two genera Uzbekbaatar and Viridomys. More precise placement of these types awaits further discoveries and analysis.
