Kingdom Animalia Higher classification Eutriconodonta Order Eutriconodonta | Phylum Chordata Rank Family | |
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Lower classifications Alticonodontinae, Volaticotherium antiquum | ||
Triconodontidae is an extinct family of actively mobile mammal, endemic to what would be North America, Europe, Africa and probably also South America and Asia during the Jurassic through Cretaceous periods at least from 190—70.6 mya. They are distinguished from amphilestids and gobiconodontids due to their occlusion patterns: instead of interlocking mollars, triconodontids fit their teeth more directly, with lower cusp "a" occluding anteriorly to upper cusp "A", between "A" and "B".
Contents
Taxonomy
Triconodontidae was named by Marsh (1887). It was assigned to Polyprotodontia by Cope (1889); to Triconodonta by Rasmussen and Callison (1981), Bonaparte (1986), Carroll (1988) and Engelmann and Callison (1998); and to Mammalia by Marsh (1887) and Luo et al. (2001).
Family †Triconodontidae Marsh 1887
Figure below is based on Martin et al. 2015.
Sometimes Volaticotheria is recovered as a part of this group. However, most recent phylogenetic studies seem to group it outside of Triconodontidae.
Phylogeny
Cladogram after Thomas Martin et all 2015