''Borealestes'' was a genus of
docodontan from the
Middle Jurassic of Britain, first discovered on the
Isle of Skye near the village of
Elgol
Elgol ( gd, Ealaghol) is a village on the shores of Loch Scavaig towards the end of the Strathaird peninsula in the Isle of Skye, in the Scottish Highlands.
Name
According to tradition, its name derives from a battle fought with five ships by ...
. It was the earliest mammaliaform from the
Mesozoic
The Mesozoic Era ( ), also called the Age of Reptiles, the Age of Conifers, and colloquially as the Age of the Dinosaurs is the second-to-last era of Earth's geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretace ...
found and named in Scotland.
A second species and was later found in other Middle Jurassic sites in England, but is now shown to be a different genus.
[ A new species, ''B. cuillinensis'' was named in 2021, also from Skye.
]
Etymology
The genus name is derived from the Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
Boreas and Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
Boreal, meaning ''northern'', the Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
listÃs meaning ''brigand'' or ''rogue''. The specific name of ''B. serendipitus'' comes from the noun ''serendipity'', relating to making a happy and unexpected discovery by accident. The species name ''B. cuillinensis'' comes from the Cuillin
The Cuillin ( gd, An Cuiltheann) is a range of mostly jagged rocky mountains on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. The main Cuillin ridge is also called the Black Cuillin to distinguish it from the Red Cuillin ('), which lie to the east of Glen Slig ...
mountains on Skye, which are near the discovery site, and the cusps of the teeth resemble the peaks of the mountains.[
]
Discovery
The first fossil of ''Borealestes serendipitus'' was discovered by Michael Waldman during a school field trip he was leading on the Isle of Skye in 1971. The holotype
A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of sever ...
is a fragment of jaw containing five molars and three premolars (BRSUG 20572)[Panciroli, E., Benson, R.B. and Luo, Z.X., 2019]
The mandible and dentition of Borealestes serendipitus (Docodonta) from the Middle Jurassic of Skye, Scotland
Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 39(3), p.e1621884 and there were several other jaw fragments collected in the following years, and a partial skeleton, all of them from the Kilmaluag Formation. Michael Waldman and Robert J. G. Savage then carried out multiple trips to the island in search of mammals and other fossils. They named ''Borealestes'' at the same time as a new species of tritylodontid
Tritylodontidae ("three-knob teeth", named after the shape of their cheek teeth) is an extinct family of small to medium-sized, highly specialized mammal-like cynodonts, bearing several mammalian traits like erect limbs, endothermy and details ...
, ''Stereognathus
''Stereognathus'' is an extinct genus of tritylodontid cynodonts from the Middle Jurassic of the United Kingdom. There is a single named species: ''S. ooliticus'', named after the Great Oolite deposits of England. A second species, ''S. hebrid ...
'hebridicus' '' (now synonymised with ''S. ooliticus'').
In 2003, ''Borealestes mussettae'' (originally 'B. mussetti') was named from isolated molars found in the Bathonian
In the geologic timescale the Bathonian is an age and stage of the Middle Jurassic. It lasted from approximately 168.3 Ma to around 166.1 Ma (million years ago). The Bathonian Age succeeds the Bajocian Age and precedes the Callovian Age.
Str ...
aged Kirtlington
Kirtlington is a village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in Oxfordshire about west of Bicester. The parish includes the Hamlet (place), hamlet of Northbrook. The United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 Census recorded the parish's populat ...
Mammal bed of Oxfordshire, England.[Sigogneau-Russell D. 200]
Docodonts from the British Mesozoic
Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 48, 3, 357-374 Both of these localities belong to the Forest Marble Formation
The Forest Marble is a geological formation in England. Part of the Great Oolite Group, it dates to the late Bathonian stage of the Middle Jurassic.Weishampel, David B; et al. (2004). "Dinosaur distribution (Middle Jurassic, Europe)." In: Weisha ...
. It was named ''mussetti'' in honour of Frances Mussett, in recognition of her major participation in fossil excavation at Kirtlington Cement Quarry. However, ''mussetti'' is the masculine form, and so this has been amended to ''mussettae'' by subsequent authors.[ It was recently recognised as different from ''Borealestes'', and so moved to the newly erected genus '' Dobunnodon'' in 2021.][
A new species, ''B. cuillinensis'', was named in 2021 based on a partial skeleton found in the same site in the Kilmaluag Formation, ]Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...
.[ It was found in 2018 by Prof Richard Butler of the University of Birmingham, during fieldwork on the island.
]
Appearance
''Borealestes'' is currently known from two partial skeletons which include skull bones, jaws, and postcrania, multiple isolated teeth, and ear bones ( petrosals[Panciroli, E., Schultz J.A., and Luo, Z-X. 2018]
The morphology of the petrosal and stapes of Borealestes (Mammaliaformes, Docodonta) from the Middle Jurassic of Skye, Scotland
Papers in Palaeontology https://doi.org/10.1002/spp2.1233).
Docodontans are small (shrew to rat sized) mammaliaforms - the wider grouping that includes mammalians and their closest relatives. ''Borealestes'' is believed to be a basal member of Docodonta.[Luo Z-X, and Martin. 200]
Analysis of molar structure and phylogeny of docodont genera
Bulletin of Carnegie Museum of Natural History 39: 27-47
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q12899042
Docodonts
Fossil taxa described in 1972
Taxa named by Michael Waldman (paleontologist)
Taxa named by R. J. G. Savage
Jurassic synapsids of Europe
Prehistoric cynodont genera