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Nyctitheriidae
Nyctitheriidae is a family of extinct eulipotyphlan insectivores known from the Paleocene and Eocene epochs of North America and Asia and persisting into the Oligocene of Europe. Several genera, including '' Nyctitherium'', '' Paradoxonycteris'', and ''Wyonycteris'', have initially been described as bats, although the family is more frequently placed in the order Eulipotyphla. Origins and discovery O.C. Marsh originally described ''Nyctitherium'', from the Eocene of Wyoming, as an early bat based on similarities of its teeth. Since 1872 more than two dozen other genera of nyctitheriids have been named, and several of these have also initially been considered bats. G.G. Simpson recognized that ''Nyctitherium'' did not represent a bat, and in 1928 named the family Nyctitheriidae for ''Nyctitherium'' and several other small insectivores. Many additional species of Nyctitheriidae from Asia, Europe, and North America have been recognized in the subsequent decades. Most species are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Animalia
Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals consume organic material, breathe oxygen, are able to move, can reproduce sexually, and go through an ontogenetic stage in which their body consists of a hollow sphere of cells, the blastula, during embryonic development. Over 1.5 million living animal species have been described—of which around 1 million are insects—but it has been estimated there are over 7 million animal species in total. Animals range in length from to . They have complex interactions with each other and their environments, forming intricate food webs. The scientific study of animals is known as zoology. Most living animal species are in Bilateria, a clade whose members have a bilaterally symmetric body plan. The Bilateria include the protostomes, containing animals such as nematodes, arthropods, flatworms, annelids and molluscs, and the deuterostomes, containing the echinode ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wyonycteris
''Wyonycteris'' is a genus of small mammals that existed in the late Paleocene and early Eocene epochs. The type species is '' Wyonycteris chalix'', which lived in Wyoming during the Clarkforkian North American Land Mammal Age of the Paleocene and was originally proposed to be an early form of insectivorous bat. Later re-examination of the material has put this alliance in doubt, and the genus has instead been proposed as belonging to the subfamily Placentidentinae, within the family Nyctitheriidae. Similar fossil material of the same time period found in Europe was later discovered and described as new species, ''Wyonycteris richardi''. Secord (2008) described the first known species of ''Wyonycteris'' from the Tiffanian NALMA, ''Wyonycteris galensis'' and ''W. microtis'', although the status of both species as members of ''Wyonycteris'' has been questioned. The two largest species, ''W. primitivus'' and ''W. kingi'', are known from the early Eocene of Mississippi and England, r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
