Ferugliotheriidae

Ferugliotheriidae

Ferugliotheriidae is one of three known families in the order Gondwanatheria. The best-known representative is the genus Ferugli otherium from the Late Cretaceous epoch in Argentina. The family may be part of the suborder Plagulacoidea, which includes the superfamily Plagia.

About Ferugliotheriidae in brief

Summary FerugliotheriidaeFerugliotheriidae is one of three known families in the order Gondwanatheria. The best-known representative is the genus Ferugli otherium from the Late Cretaceous epoch in Argentina. They are known from isolated, low-crowned teeth and possibly a fragment of a lower jaw. They may have lived in a marshy or seashore environment and coexisted with mammals such as dryolestoids and a variety of other animals, including dinosaurs. Low- crowned and bladelike teeth may have been evolutionary precursors of the high-c Crowned teeth of the other gondwanathere family, Sudamericidae. The family may be part of the suborder Plagulacoidea, which includes the superfamily Plagia. Together with Bonaparte, he proposed to classify gondwanaatheres as a suborder of multituberculates. In 1996, he also proposed a superfamily, Ferugulacoia, including the families Ferug Liotheriaceae and Sudamerica. The following year, Krause confirmed that Vucetichia gracilis is a synonym of FerugLiotherium windhauseni. The first member of the family to be discovered, FerUGliotherium Windhauseni, was named in 1986 by Argentinean paleontologist José F.Bonaparte on the basis of a tooth from the Los Alamitos Formation of Argentina.

It was tentatively assigned to the order Multituberculata, a large group of extinct mammals that was particularly widespread in the northern continents but had never previously been found in the south. In 1990, Bonapartes and Krause redefined Gondwanaatheria as a multituberculated suborder that included both Ferug liotheriids and Sud Americidae, thus rejecting a relationship between gondwaatheres and xenarthrans. They suggested that the specimens that Vichia was based on may have worn on may be among and multitubercularates. They also suggested that it may be a superorder of Plaguulacoa including the superfamilies Plagiuulacia and Plaguiulacidae. They placed it in the family Gondwaatheriidae, together with another species, another Los Alam itos mammal, within the order gondwansatheres, which also contained the family Sud America. In 1992, BonAParte merged the family into Sudamerics and redefined the order as a group of uncertain affinities.