''Eomanis'' ("dawn pangolin") is the earliest known true (and scaled) pangolin from extinct family Eomanidae (and extinct superfamily Eomanoidea) within suborder Eupholidota. It lived during the

Eocene The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''ēṓs'', " ...

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

. ''Eomanis''

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

s found in the

Messel Pit The Messel pit (german: Grube Messel) is a disused quarry near the village of Messel (Landkreis Darmstadt-Dieburg, Hesse) about southeast of Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Bituminous shale was mined there. Because of its abundance of well-preserved ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

are very similar in size and anatomy to living pangolins of the genus '' Manis'', indicating that pangolins have remained largely unchanged in morphology and behavior for 50 million years. However, unlike modern pangolins, its tail and legs did not bear scales. According to the stomach contents of the excellently preserved Messel specimens, ''Eomanis’''

diet Diet may refer to: Food * Diet (nutrition), the sum of the food consumed by an organism or group * Dieting, the deliberate selection of food to control body weight or nutrient intake ** Diet food, foods that aid in creating a diet for weight loss ...

consisted of both

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three ...

s and

plant Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclu ...

s. Another early mammal discovered in the Messel Pit that was similar in anatomy and likely also had an insectivorous diet was ''

Eurotamandua ''Eurotamandua'' ("european ''Tamandua''") is an extinct genus of mammal from extinct family Eurotamanduidae that lived some 40-35 million years ago, during the middle Eocene. A single fossil is known, coming from the Messel Pit in southwestern ...

''. Despite its name, ''Eurotamandua'' was almost certainly not a

xenarthran Xenarthra (; from Ancient Greek ξένος, xénos, "foreign, alien" + ἄρθρον, árthron, "joint") is a major clade of placental mammals native to the Americas. There are 31 living species: the anteaters, tree sloths, and armadillos. Ex ...

because it lacked the characteristic xenarthran joints present in all living and extinct xenarthrans. In addition, xenarthrans existed exclusively in South America for almost the entire

Cenozoic era The Cenozoic ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterised by the dominance of mammals, birds and flowering plants, a cooling and drying climate, and the current configu ...

. They spread to North America after the Panama land bridge formed 3 million years ago, but never reached Eurasia or Africa. ''Eurotamandua'' was likely also an early pangolin, possibly the ancestor of ''Eomanis''.

Phylogeny

Phylogenetic position of genus ''Eomanis'' within order Pholidota.

References

* Prehistoric pangolins Eocene mammals Myrmecophagous mammals Prehistoric placental genera Cenozoic mammals of Europe Fossil taxa described in 1978 {{paleo-mammal-stub