Details - A new insectivore from the Middle Eocene of Tabernacle Butte, Wyoming

A new insectivore from the Middle Eocene of Tabernacle Butte, Wyoming

Title

A new insectivore from the Middle Eocene of Tabernacle Butte, Wyoming

Related Titles

Series: American Museum novitates, no. 1952

By

McKenna, Malcolm C.

Simpson, George Gaylord, 1902-1984

Type

Book

Material

Published material

Publication info

New York, N.Y, American Museum of Natural History, [1959]

Notes

Title from caption.

"June 26, 1959."

Specimen collected from the Bridger Formation.

"Scenopagus is regarded as a very primitive erinaceid differing significantly from advanced members of the family, yet possessing a morphology that is in genral structurally ancestral to advanced erinaceids. To a considerable extent Tupaiodon (Oligocene, Mongolia) bridges the gap between advanced forms and Scenopagus, but Tupaiodon occurs too late in time to have been actually intermediate. P[superscript 4] is similar in Scenopagus and Proterixoides, which present the earliest known examples of this characteristic erinaceid tooth. The hypocones of the molars are quite different from those of advanced erinaceids, but intermediate morphology is demonstrated by Proterixoides and Tupaiodon. The transverse nature of the molars is another primitive feature, but again Tupaiodon bridges the gap. The broad cingular shelf, strong parastyle and metastyle, and emarginate buccal edge of the molars are similar to the corresponding structures in Metacodon and may indicate fairly close relationship to the Metacodontidae. The metacodonts probably originated from primitive erinaceids similar to Scenopagus but possessing two lingual uppar molar roots as in the Echinosoricinae"--P. 11.