Diegoaelurus , a new machaeroidine (Oxyaenidae) from the Santiago Formation (late Uintan) of southern California and the relationships of Machaeroidinae, the oldest group of sabertooth mammals

PeerJ

article

Shawn P. Zack¹  Ashley W. Poust³  Hugh Wagner³ 

[1] Department of Basic Medical Sciences, University of Arizona College of Medicine—Phoenix;School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University;Department of Paleontology;University of California Museum of Paleontology, University of California

关键词: Machaeroidinae;    Oxyaenidae;    Eocene;    Uintan;    Santiago Formation;    Sabertooth;    Phylogeny;    New taxon;    California;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.13032

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

Machaeroidinae is a taxonomically small clade of early and middle Eocene carnivorous mammals that includes the earliest known saber-toothed mammalian carnivores. Machaeroidine diversity is low, with only a handful of species described from North America and Asia. Here we report a new genus and species of machaeroidine, Diegoaelurus vanvalkenburghae, established on the basis of a nearly complete dentary with most of the dentition from the late Uintan (middle Eocene) portion of the Santiago Formation of southern California. The new taxon is the youngest known machaeroidine and provides the first evidence for the presence of multiple machaeroidine lineages, as it differs substantially from Apataelurus kayi, the only near-contemporaneous member of the group. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that Diegoaelurus is the sister taxon of Apataelurus, while older species are recovered as a monophyletic Machaeroides. Both phylogenetic results are relatively weakly supported. The new taxon extends the record of machaeroidines to the end of the Uintan, potentially tying machaeroidine extinction to the faunal turnover spanning the middle to late Eocene transition in North America.

【 授权许可】

CC BY