''Psalodon'' ("shearing tooth" from Ancient Greek ψᾰλίς (psalís), "shears" + ὀδών (odṓn), "tooth") is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

genus of

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

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 ...

that lived during the Upper

Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a Geological period, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The J ...

period. It's a member of the family

Allodontidae Allodontidae (from ancient Greek "ἄλλος" "ὀδούς", "different tooth") is a family of extinct multituberculate mammal that lived in what is now North America during the Upper Jurassic period. They were relatively early mammals and ar ...

within the order

Multituberculata Multituberculata (commonly known as multituberculates, named for the multiple tubercles of their teeth) is an extinct order of rodent-like mammals with a fossil record spanning over 130 million years. They first appeared in the Middle Jurassic, a ...

Biostratigraphy

Present in stratigraphic zones 2 and 5.Foster, J. (2007). "Appendix." ''Jurassic West: The Dinosaurs of the Morrison Formation and Their World''. Indiana University Press. pp. 327-329.

Species

''Psalodon fortis'' was named by

Othniel Charles Marsh Othniel Charles Marsh (October 29, 1831 – March 18, 1899) was an American professor of Paleontology in Yale College and President of the National Academy of Sciences. He was one of the preeminent scientists in the field of paleontology. Among h ...

in 1887 and

G. G. Simpson George Gaylord Simpson (June 16, 1902 – October 6, 1984) was an American paleontologist. Simpson was perhaps the most influential paleontologist of the twentieth century, and a major participant in the Modern synthesis (20th century), modern ...

in 1927. It is also known as ''Allodon fortis'' (Marsh 1887). Remains have been found in the Upper Jurassic

Morrison Formation The Morrison Formation is a distinctive sequence of Late Jurassic, Upper Jurassic sedimentary rock found in the western United States which has been the most fertile source of dinosaur fossils in North America. It is composed of mudstone, sandsto ...

Wyoming Wyoming () is a U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the south ...

(United States). The holotype is at the

Peabody Museum of Natural History The Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University is among the oldest, largest, and most prolific university natural history museums in the world. It was founded by the philanthropist George Peabody in 1866 at the behest of his nephew Othn ...

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

. ''Psalodon marshi'' was named by Simpson G.G. in 1929. All of the remains came from the Morrison Formation of Wyoming. ''Psalodon potens'' was named by Marsh O.C. in 1887 and Simpson G.G. in 1927. It is also known as ''Ctenacodon potens'' (Marsh 1887). The remains assigned to this species were also found in the Morrison Formation of Wyoming and the holotype is also at Yale.

References

* Simpson (1927), Mesozoic Mammalia. VII. "Taxonomy of Morrison multituberculates". ''Am. J. Sci.'' (5) xiv: 36–38. *Marsh (1887), "American Jurassic mammals". ''Am. J. Sci.'' (3) xxxiii: p. 326-348. * Kielan-Jaworowska Z & Hurum JH (2001), "Phylogeny and Systematics of multituberculate mammals". ''Paleontology'' 44, p. 389-429. Multituberculates Morrison mammals Prehistoric mammal genera Fossil taxa described in 1926 {{jurassic-mammal-stub