''Liaoconodon'' is an
extinct genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...
of early
mammal from the early
Cretaceous
The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of ...
(early
Aptian stage, approximately 120
Ma). It is a
eutriconodont
Eutriconodonta is an order of early mammals. Eutriconodonts existed in Asia, Africa, Europe, North and South America during the Jurassic and the Cretaceous periods. The order was named by Kermack ''et al.'' in 1973 as a replacement name for the p ...
which lived in what is now the
Jianchang of
Liaoning Province, eastern
China. It is known from 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 ...
IVPP V 16051, which consists of nearly complete
skeleton and
skull
The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, th ...
. It was found in the
Jiufotang Formation
The Jiufotang Formation ( Chinese: 九佛堂组, pinyin: ''jiǔfótáng zǔ'') is an Early Cretaceous geological formation in Chaoyang, Liaoning which has yielded fossils of feathered dinosaurs, primitive birds, pterosaurs, and other organisms (see ...
(
Jehol Biota
The Jehol Biota includes all the living organisms – the ecosystem – of northeastern China between 133 and 120 million years ago. This is the Lower Cretaceous ecosystem which left fossils in the Yixian Formation and Jiufotang Formation. These ...
) near Xiaotaizi,
Lamadong. It was first named by Jin Meng, Yuanqing Wang and Chuankui Li in
2011 and the
type species
In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specime ...
is ''Liaoconodon hui''.
Studies on its anatomy show that it was a semi-aquatic mammal, having a long body and paddle-like limbs.
Phylogeny
Cladogram
A cladogram (from Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an evolutionary tree because it does not show how ancestors are related to ...
after
Thomas Martin Thomas or Tom Martin may refer to:
Born 16th century
*Thomas Martin (politician, died 1583) (1530–1583), MP for Dorchester
* Thomas Martin (lawyer) (1521–1593), MP for Ludgershall, Saltash and Hindon
Born 17th century
*Thomas Martin of Pa ...
et al. 2015
[Thomas Martin, Jesús Marugán-Lobón, Romain Vullo, Hugo Martín-Abad, Zhe-Xi Luo & Angela D. Buscalioni (2015). A Cretaceous eutriconodont and integument evolution in early mammals. Nature 526, 380–384. ]
References
Cretaceous mammals
Fossil taxa described in 2011
Prehistoric animals of China
Jiufotang fauna
Taxa named by Jin Meng
Taxa named by Yuanqing Wang
Taxa named by Chuankui Li
Prehistoric mammal genera
{{cretaceous-mammal-stub