Vincelestes

Vincelestes ("Vince's thief") is an extinct genus of mammal that lived in what is now South America during the Early Cretaceous. It is closely related to modern therian mammals as part of Cladotheria.

Vincelestes
Temporal range: Barremian-Early Aptian
~
Artist's restoration
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Clade: Prototribosphenida
Family: †Vincelestidae
Bonaparte, 1986
Genus: †Vincelestes
Bonaparte, 1986
Species:
†V. neuquenianus
Binomial name
†Vincelestes neuquenianus
Bonaparte, 1986

Description

Vincelestes neuquenianus is the only species known to date. Specimens were found in La Amarga Formation of southern Neuquén Province, Argentina. The remains of only nine individuals were recovered from this site.

The back teeth of Vincelestes were similar to those of therians in that they were capable of cutting and grinding. This enabled them to process food more efficiently.

Diet

In one study on Mesozoic mammal mandibles, Vincelestes plots with herbivorous and omnivorous taxa.[1]

Phylogeny

Although not the direct ancestor of therians, Vincelestes is important because it gives an idea of what the ancestor of both placental and marsupial mammals might have looked like, and also gives an indication of when these mammals may have originated.

Some studies inversely recovered the genus as an australosphenida,[2][3] although current thought places Vincelestes as sister to marsupials and placental mammals.[4][5]

References
  1. Morales-García, N. M.; Gill, P. G.; Janis, C. M.; Rayfield, E. J. (2021). "Jaw shape and mechanical advantage are indicative of diet in Mesozoic mammals". Communications Biology. 4 (1): 242. doi:10.1038/s42003-021-01757-3. PMC 7902851. PMID 33623117.
  2. Chimento, Nicolas; Agnolin, Federico; Martinelli, Agustin (May 2016). "Mesozoic Mammals from South America: Implications for understanding early mammalian faunas from Gondwana". Historia Evolutiva y Paleobiogeográfica de los Vertebrados de América del Sur. pp. 199–209.
  3. Bonaparte, José F. (17 September 2008). "On the phylogenetic relationships of". Historical Biology. 20 (2): 81–86. doi:10.1080/08912960802164470.
  4. Huttenlocker, Adam K.; Grossnickle, David M.; Kirkland, James I.; Schultz, Julia A.; Luo, Zhe-Xi (23 May 2018). "Late-surviving stem mammal links the lowermost Cretaceous of North America and Gondwana". Nature. 558 (7708): 108–112. Bibcode:2018Natur.558..108H. doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0126-y. PMID 29795343.
  5. Bi, Shundong; Zheng, Xiaoting; Wang, Xiaoli; Cignetti, Natalie E.; Yang, Shiling; Wible, John R. (13 June 2018). "An Early Cretaceous eutherian and the placental–marsupial dichotomy". Nature. 558 (7710): 390–395. Bibcode:2018Natur.558..390B. doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0210-3. PMID 29899454.

Further reading
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