''Groebertherium'' is a genus of

dryolestoid Dryolestida is an extinct order of mammals, primarily and possibly exclusively known from the Jurassic and Cretaceous. They are considered members of the clade Cladotheria, close to the ancestry of therian mammals. It is also believed that they ...

mammal from the

Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', ...

Los Alamitos and

Allen Formation The Allen Formation is a geological formation in Argentina whose strata date back to the Late Cretaceous (middle Campanian to early Maastrichtian.Salgado et al., 2007 Dinosaur remains are among the fossils that have been recovered from the formati ...

s of

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

. It is not closely related to other contemporary dryolestoids, all of which are part of the clade Meridiolestida.

Classification

''Groebertherium'' has been consistently recovered as a

within Dryolestida and outside of Meridiolestida, though its exact positioning varies among several studies. Rougier ''et al.'' 2011, for example, recovers it as a member of

Dryolestidae Dryolestidae is an extinct family of Mesozoic mammals, known from the Middle Jurassic to the Early Cretaceous of the North Hemisphere. The oldest known member, '' Anthracolestes'', is known from the Middle Jurassic Itat Formation of Western Siber ...

, rendering it a relictual survivor of this clade with a gap of 40 million years in relation to the youngest northern dryolestids, while Harper ''et al.'' 2018 recovers it as slightly closer to Meridiolestida than to northern dryolestoids.

Palaeobiology

Unlike meridiolestidans, it retains a parastylar hook on its molariform teeth. Therefore, it was likely less specialised to transverse (side-to-side) mastication. It was rather similar to ''

Dryolestes ''Dryolestes'' is an extinct genus of Late Jurassic mammal from the Morrison Formation and the Alcobaça Formation The Alcobaça Formation, previously known as the Guimarota Formation and also known as the Consolação Unit, is a geological fo ...

'', indicating a similar

tenrec A tenrec is any species of mammal within the afrotherian family Tenrecidae endemic to Madagascar. Tenrecs are wildly diverse; as a result of convergent evolution some resemble hedgehogs, shrews, opossums, rats, and mice. They occupy aquatic, a ...

hedgehog A hedgehog is a spiny mammal of the subfamily Erinaceinae, in the eulipotyphlan family Erinaceidae. There are seventeen species of hedgehog in five genera found throughout parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and in New Zealand by introductio ...

-like lifestyle.

References

{{Portal bar, Paleontology, Cretaceous, Prehistoric mammals Dryolestida Cretaceous mammals of South America Late Cretaceous tetrapods of South America Late Cretaceous genus first appearances Late Cretaceous genus extinctions Santonian life Campanian life Maastrichtian life Cretaceous Argentina Fossils of Argentina Allen Formation Los Alamitos Formation Fossil taxa described in 1986 Taxa named by José Bonaparte Prehistoric mammal genera