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Didelphodon
''Didelphodon'' (from ''is''/nowiki>.html" ;"title="/nowiki>''is''/nowiki>">/nowiki>''is''/nowiki> "opossum" plus "tooth") is a genus of stagodont metatherians from the Late Cretaceous of North America. Description Although perhaps little larger than a Virginia opossum, with a skull length of over and a weight of , ''Didelphodon'' was the largest Cretaceous mammal. The teeth have specialized bladelike cusps and carnassial notches, indicating that the animal was a predator; the jaws are short and massive and bear enormous, bulbous premolar teeth which appear to have been used for crushing. Analyses of a near-complete skull referred to ''Didelphodon'' show that it had an unusually high bite force quotient (i.e. bite force relative to body size) among Mesozoic mammals, suggesting a durophagous diet. However, its skull lacks the vaulted forehead of hyenas and other specialized bone-eating durophagous mammals, indicating that its diet was perhaps a mixture of hard foodstuffs (e.g. ...
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Didelphodon Skull Restoration
''Didelphodon'' (from Didelphis, [''is''] "opossum" plus "tooth") is a genus of stagodontidae, stagodont metatherians from the Late Cretaceous of North America. Description Although perhaps little larger than a Virginia opossum, with a skull length of over and a weight of , ''Didelphodon'' was the largest Cretaceous mammal. The teeth have specialized bladelike cusps and carnassial notches, indicating that the animal was a predator; the jaws are short and massive and bear enormous, bulbous premolar teeth which appear to have been used for crushing. Analyses of a near-complete skull referred to ''Didelphodon'' show that it had an unusually high bite force quotient (i.e. bite force relative to body size) among Mesozoic mammals, suggesting a durophagy, durophagous diet. However, its skull lacks the vaulted forehead of hyenas and other specialized bone-eating durophagous mammals, indicating that its diet was perhaps a mixture of hard foodstuffs (e.g. snails, bones) alongside small ve ...
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Stagodontidae
Stagodontidae is an extinct family of carnivorous metatherian mammals that inhabited North America and Europe during the late Cretaceous, and possibly to the Eocene in South America. Description Currently, the family includes four genera, ''Eodelphis'', ''Didelphodon'', '' Fumodelphodon'' and '' Hoodootherium'', which together include some seven different species. In addition, the Cenomanian species '' Pariadens kirklandi'' might be a member of the family. Carneiro and Oliveira (2017) considered the species '' Eobrasilia coutoi'' from the early Eocene (Itaboraian) of Brazil to be a stagodontid; if confirmed it would make it the only known Cenozoic and the only known South American member of the family. Stagodontids were some of the largest known Cretaceous mammals, ranging from in mass. One of the most unusual features of stagodontids are their robust, bulbous premolars, which are thought to have been used to crush freshwater mollusks, a diet that apparently evolved independent ...
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Stagodontidae
Stagodontidae is an extinct family of carnivorous metatherian mammals that inhabited North America and Europe during the late Cretaceous, and possibly to the Eocene in South America. Description Currently, the family includes four genera, ''Eodelphis'', ''Didelphodon'', '' Fumodelphodon'' and '' Hoodootherium'', which together include some seven different species. In addition, the Cenomanian species '' Pariadens kirklandi'' might be a member of the family. Carneiro and Oliveira (2017) considered the species '' Eobrasilia coutoi'' from the early Eocene (Itaboraian) of Brazil to be a stagodontid; if confirmed it would make it the only known Cenozoic and the only known South American member of the family. Stagodontids were some of the largest known Cretaceous mammals, ranging from in mass. One of the most unusual features of stagodontids are their robust, bulbous premolars, which are thought to have been used to crush freshwater mollusks, a diet that apparently evolved independent ...
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Horseshoe Canyon Formation
The Horseshoe Canyon Formation is a stratigraphic unit of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin in southwestern Alberta. It takes its name from Horseshoe Canyon, an area of badlands near Drumheller. The Horseshoe Canyon Formation is part of the Edmonton Group and is up to thick. It is of Late Cretaceous age, Campanian to early Maastrichtian stage (Edmontonian Land-Mammal Age), and is composed of mudstone, sandstone, carbonaceous shales, and coal seams. A variety of depositional environments are represented in the succession, including floodplains, estuarine channels, and coal swamps, which have yielded a diversity of fossil material. Tidally-influenced estuarine point bar deposits are easily recognizable as Inclined Heterolithic Stratification (IHS). Brackish-water trace fossil assemblages occur within these bar deposits and demonstrate periodic incursion of marine waters into the estuaries. The Horseshoe Canyon Formation crops out extensively in the area around Drumheller, a ...
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Eodelphis
''Eodelphis'', from eo- plus /nowiki>''delphis''.html" ;"title="/nowiki>/nowiki>''delphis''">/nowiki>/nowiki>''delphis'', thus meaning "very early opossum", is a genus of stagodont metatherians from the Late Cretaceous of North America, with distinctive crushing dentition. Named species include ''E. browni'' and the more advanced ''E. cutleri''. Both come from the Late Campanian (Judithian "Land Mammal Age") of Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta. Specimens are also known from the Judith River Formation of Montana. ''E. cutleri'' is related to the Maastrichtian genus ''Didelphodon'' as indicated by its enlarged premolars and more robust jaw. ''Eodelphis'' was probably an aquatic predator like its relative ''Didelphodon ''Didelphodon'' (from ''is''/nowiki>.html" ;"title="/nowiki>''is''/nowiki>">/nowiki>''is''/nowiki> "opossum" plus "tooth") is a genus of stagodont metatherians from the Late Cretaceous of North America. Description Although perhaps little la ...'', and may ...
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Metatherian
Metatheria is a mammalian clade that includes all mammals more closely related to marsupials than to placentals. First proposed by Thomas Henry Huxley in 1880, it is a more inclusive group than the marsupials; it contains all marsupials as well as many extinct non-marsupial relatives. There are three extant subclasses of mammals, one being metatherians: #monotremes: egg laying mammals like the platypus and the echidna, #metatheria: marsupials, which includes three American orders ( Didelphimorphia, Paucituberculata and Microbiotheria) and four Australasian orders (Notoryctemorphia, Dasyuromorphia, Peramelemorphia and Diprotodontia), and the # eutherians: placental mammals, consisting of four superorders divided into 21 orders. Metatherians belong to a subgroup of the northern tribosphenic mammal clade or Boreosphenida. They differ from all other mammals in certain morphologies like their dental formula, which includes about five upper and four lower incisors, a canine, three pre ...
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Alphadontidae
Alphadontidae was a family of mammals belonging to the clade Metatheria, the group of mammals that includes modern-day marsupials Marsupials are any members of the mammalian infraclass Marsupialia. All extant marsupials are endemic to Australasia, Wallacea and the Americas. A distinctive characteristic common to most of these species is that the young are carried in a po .... References {{Taxonbar, from=Q11904934 Prehistoric mammal families Prehistoric metatherians ...
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Frenchman Formation
The Frenchman Formation is stratigraphic unit of Late Cretaceous (late Maastrichtian) age in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin. It is present in southern Saskatchewan and the Cypress Hills of southeastern Alberta. The formation was defined by G.M. Furnival in 1942 from observations of outcrops along the Frenchman River, between Ravenscrag and Highway 37. It contains the youngest of dinosaur genera, much like the Hell Creek Formation in the United States. Lithology The Frenchman Formation consists of olive-green to brown, fine- to coarse-grained, cross-bedded sandstone with interbedded claystone bands and minor beds and lenses of intraformational clay-clast conglomerate. A conglomerate layer with well-rounded quartzite pebbles is present above the basal unconformity in some areas.Glass, D.J., editor, 1997. Lexicon of Canadian Stratigraphy, vol. 4, Western Canada. Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists, Calgary, Alberta, 1423 p. on CD-ROM, . Thickness and distribution The ...
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Order (biology)
Order ( la, wikt:ordo#Latin, ordo) is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy. It is classified between Family_(biology), family and Class_(biology), class. In biological classification, the order is a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms and recognized by the nomenclature codes. An immediately higher rank, superorder, is sometimes added directly above order, with suborder directly beneath order. An order can also be defined as a group of related families. What does and does not belong to each order is determined by a taxonomist, as is whether a particular order should be recognized at all. Often there is no exact agreement, with different taxonomists each taking a different position. There are no hard rules that a taxonomist needs to follow in describing or recognizing an order. Some taxa are accepted almost universally, while others are recognized only rarely. The name of an order is usually written with a capital letter. Fo ...
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