''Shenshou'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

haramiyida Haramiyida ("thief" from Arabic الحرامية (al ḥarāmiyah), "thief, bandit") is a possibly polyphyletic order of mammaliaform cynodonts or mammals of controversial taxonomic affinites. Their teeth, which are by far the most common remains ...

n dating from the Oxfordian stage of the Late Jurassic, approximately 160 million years ago. Fossils were recovered from the Tiaojishan Formation in the

Liaoning Liaoning () is a coastal province in Northeast China that is the smallest, southernmost, and most populous province in the region. With its capital at Shenyang, it is located on the northern shore of the Yellow Sea, and is the northernmost ...

province of

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

Etymology

The generic name is derived from

Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...

(神獸 shénshòu) ''shen'', meaning deity, and ''shou'', meaning animal, while the specific name is in reference to Lu Jianhua, the scientist who collected 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 several ...

specimen.

Description

''Shenshou'' is thought to be arboreal because it had a light frame, a prehensile and elongated tail, and hands and feet which had evolved for clutching and enabled the animal to climb. These features, including the large incisors of ''Shenshou'', made the animal resemble a squirrel. However, ''Shenshou'' are not the direct ancestors of squirrels, the resemblance being purely due to

convergent evolution Convergent evolution is the independent evolution of similar features in species of different periods or epochs in time. Convergent evolution creates analogous structures that have similar form or function but were not present in the last com ...

. Individuals are believed to have weighed . The presence of a three-boned middle ear suggests these animals were mammals; however, it has since been determined haramiyidans developed their ear bones independently from true mammals and are

Mammaliaformes Mammaliaformes ("mammalian forms") is a clade that contains the crown group mammals and their closest Extinction, extinct relatives; the group adaptive radiation, radiated from earlier probainognathian cynodonts. It is defined as the clade origin ...

outside of the mammal crown-group.Qing-Jin Meng; David M. Grossnickle; Di Liu; Yu-Guang Zhang; April I. Neander; Qiang Ji; Zhe-Xi Luo (2017). "New gliding mammaliaforms from the Jurassic". Nature. in press. doi:10.1038/nature23476. The teeth, which have a number of cusps, suggest that ''Shenshou'' was probably an omnivore, most likely with a diet of fruits, nuts and insects.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q18121253 Euharamiyids Prehistoric cynodont genera Late Jurassic synapsids of Asia Prehistoric animals of China Fossil taxa described in 2014 Prehistoric monotypic mammal genera Taxa named by Shundong Bi Taxa named by Yuanqing Wang Taxa named by Jian Guan Taxa named by Xia Sheng Taxa named by Jin Meng