''Leptictis'' is an extinct genus of leptictid non-

placental Placental mammals (infraclass Placentalia ) are one of the three extant subdivisions of the class Mammalia, the other two being Monotremata and Marsupial Marsupials are any members of the mammalian infraclass Marsupialia. All extant marsup ...

eutherian Eutheria (; from Greek , 'good, right' and , 'beast'; ) is the clade consisting of all therian mammals that are more closely related to placentals than to marsupials. Eutherians are distinguished from noneutherians by various phenotypic tra ...

mammal Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or ...

known from the

Late 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'', "daw ...

Early Oligocene The Rupelian is, in the geologic timescale, the older of two ages or the lower of two stages of the Oligocene Epoch/Series. It spans the time between . It is preceded by the Priabonian Stage (part of the Eocene) and is followed by the Chatti ...

of North America. The type species, ''L. haydeni'', was named in 1868 by

Joseph Leidy Joseph Mellick Leidy (September 9, 1823 – April 30, 1891) was an American paleontologist, parasitologist and anatomist. Leidy was professor of anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania, later was a professor of natural history at Swarthmore ...

in honour of

Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden (September 7, 1829 – December 22, 1887) was an American geologist noted for his pioneering surveying expeditions of the Rocky Mountains in the late 19th century. He was also a physician who served with the Union Ar ...

. ''L. dakotensis'' was also named by Leidy in 1868, but he originally named it as a separate species, ''Ictops'', which is now seen as the same animal as ''Lepticitis''. Since then, six other species have been named. The hind limbs are proportionally elongated compared to their forelimbs similar to

elephant shrews Elephant shrews, also called jumping shrews or sengis, are small insectivorous mammals native to Africa, belonging to the family Macroscelididae, in the order Macroscelidea. Their traditional common English name "elephant shrew" comes from a pe ...

, though to a lesser degree than ''

Leptictidium ''Leptictidium'' (a Latinized diminutive of the name of its relative '' Leptictis'', which means "graceful weasel" in Ancient Greek) is an extinct genus of small mammals that were likely bipedal. Comprising eight species, they resembled today's ...

,'' and it is suggested that they were capable of rapid bursts of quadrupedal locomotion. The forelimbs were likely used for digging.

References

Leptictids Eocene mammals Oligocene mammals Paleogene mammals of North America White River Fauna Fossil taxa described in 1868 Prehistoric mammal genera {{paleo-mammal-stub