''Amphilestes'' is a

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

from the

Middle Jurassic The Middle Jurassic is the second Epoch (geology), epoch of the Jurassic Period (geology), Period. It lasted from about 174.1 to 163.5 million years ago. Fossils of land-dwelling animals, such as dinosaurs, from the Middle Jurassic are relatively ...

of the United Kingdom. It was one of the first

Mesozoic The Mesozoic Era ( ), also called the Age of Reptiles, the Age of Conifers, and colloquially as the Age of the Dinosaurs is the second-to-last era of Earth's geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretace ...

mammals discovered and described.

Discovery

The first specimen of ''Amphilestes'' was discovered along with several other mammal jaws in the

Stonesfield Slate Stonesfield is a village and civil parish about north of Witney in Oxfordshire, and about 10 miles (17 km) north-west of Oxford. The village is on the crest of an escarpment. The parish extends mostly north and north-east of the village, ...

Quarry,

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primaril ...

before 1764.Kermack, KA. 1988 British Mesozoic mammal sites. ''Special Papers in Palaeontology'', 40:85-93. However, it was not until 1812 that

William Broderip William John Broderip FRS (21 November 1789 – 27 February 1859) was an English lawyer and naturalist. Life Broderip, the eldest son of William Broderip, surgeon from Bristol, was born at Bristol on 21 November 1789, and, after being educat ...

bought the jaws, and he and his mentor - the famous palaeontologist Revd

William Buckland William Buckland DD, FRS (12 March 1784 – 14 August 1856) was an English theologian who became Dean of Westminster. He was also a geologist and palaeontologist. Buckland wrote the first full account of a fossil dinosaur, which he named ' ...

- recognised that they were of mammal origin. ''Amphilestes broderipii'' was originally '' Amphitherium broderipii'', until it was recognised as a distinct and new species in 1871. Owen, R. 1871. Monograph of the Fossil Mammalia of the Mesozoic Formations. Palaeontographical Society.

Description

''Amphilestes'' is known from various dental and mandibular remains. The dental formula of the mandible is 4:1:4:5. The premolars are symmetrical and the crowns look like tricusped molars, with the central cusp being largest in premolars and molars, though the size difference is less great in the premolars. George Gaylord Simpson (1928, p. 71) noted that the teeth of ''Amphilestes'' are diagnosable in having “molar cusps high and slender, molar cingulum rising below the main cusp, molar enamel not pitted."Butler, P.M. and Sigogneau-Russell, D. 2016. Diversity of triconodonts in the Middle Jurassic of Great Britain. Palaeontologia Polonica 67, 35–65. LSID urn:lsid:zoobank.org: pub: C4D90BB6-A001-4DDB-890E-2061B4793992

References

Eutriconodonts Bathonian genera Middle Jurassic mammals of Europe Jurassic England Fossils of England Fossil taxa described in 1871 Taxa named by Richard Owen Prehistoric mammal genera {{jurassic-mammal-stub