Asioryctitheria ("Asian digging beasts") is an extinct order of early
eutheria
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 ...
ns.
Skull structure
With the exception of '' Prokennalestes'', these advanced forms lacked a
Meckelian groove The Meckelian groove (or Meckel's groove, Meckelian fossa, or Meckelian foramen, or Meckelian canal) is an opening in the medial (inner) surface of the mandible (lower jaw) which exposes the Meckelian cartilage.canines, a lower premolar with a reduced or absent metaconid and a more elongated lower premolar than their predecessors. In addition, the entoconid and hypoconulid on the lower molars are untwinned, the entotympanic is non-existent, the
alisphenoid
The greater wing of the sphenoid bone, or alisphenoid, is a bony process of the sphenoid bone; there is one on each side, extending from the side of the body of the sphenoid and curving upward, laterally, and backward.
Structure
The greater wi ...
is enlarged, a
Vidian foramen
Guido Guidi (Latinized name Vidus Vidius) (10 February 1509 – 26 May 1569), was an Italian surgeon, anatomist and translator.
Biography
His father was a physician and his mother was the daughter of the painter Domenico Ghirlandajo.
After p ...
crista interfenestralis
The crista interfenestralis is an anatomical feature found in the inner ear of many reptiles. It is a bone ridge that divides the inner ear into two parts, the anterior and the posterior. The anterior part contains the fenestra ovalis and seems ...
.
Classification
Asioryctitheria contains at least four genera and two families.Mikko's Phylogeny Archiv Paleofile.com (net, info) .
* ''Sasayamamylos kawaii'' Kusuhashi et al. 2013
* Kennalestidae Kielan-Jaworowska 1981
** ''Kennalestes, Kennalestes gobiensis'' Kielan-Jaworowska 1981
* Asioryctidae Szalay 1977
** ''Asioryctes, Asioryctes nemegetensis'' Kielan-Jaworowska 1975
** ''Ukhaatherium, Ukhaatherium nesovi'' Novacek et al. 1997
References
Further reading
*Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska, Richard L. Cifelli, and Zhe-Xi Luo, ''Mammals from the Age of Dinosaurs: Origins, Evolution, and Structure'' (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 499–501.