Cimolesta is an extinct
order of
non-placentaleutherianmammals.[2] Cimolestans had a wide variety of body shapes, dentition and lifestyles, though the majority of them were small to medium-sized general mammals that bore superficial resemblances to
rodents,
lagomorphs,
mustelids, and
marsupials.
Several groups have previously been suggested to have descended from the Cimolesta: the
Pholidota (which would have been regarded as a suborder of Cimolesta), the
Creodonta, and the Carnivora. The origins of the enigmatic
Dinocerata have been suggested to lie within the Cimolesta as well. However, recent studies have revealed that cimolestans are more likely to be basal, non-placental eutherians, with no living descendants.[2]
Some experts had placed the
pangolins within Cimolesta, though the current consensus is that the pangolins should be placed within their own order, Pholidota, as a sister taxon to
Carnivora within
Ferae.[3][4] Some have also placed the enigmatic
familyPtolemaiidae within Cimolesta, also due to similarities between dental and skull anatomies with those of
Pantolesta. If the ptolemaiids were indeed cimolestids, then Cimolesta would have ranged from the Late
Cretaceous to the early
Miocene, when the last ptolemaiid, Kelba, disappeared in Eastern
Africa. However, more thorough studies suggest that the ptolemaiids were more probably
afrotheres related to
aardvarks,
tenrecs and
golden moles.[5][6] If one ignores the ptolemaiids as afrotherians, then the last, unequivocal cimolestids, the pantolestids Gobiopithecus and Kiinkerishella, died out during the
Late Eocene or early
Oligocene.
The cimolestid Procerberus may have been closely related to
Taeniodonta.[7][8][9][10][11]Procerberus was the largest cimolestid and different species may be closer to
conoryctid taeniodonts and others to
stylinodontine taeniodonts. However, Procerberus has been found by cladistic analysis to be outside of a Taeniodonta + Alveugena carbonensis, with Procerberus grandis being closer to that clade than to other Procerberus species.[8]
^
abRook, D.L.; Hunter, J.P. (2013). "Rooting Around the Eutherian Family Tree: the Origin and Relations of the Taeniodonta". Journal of Mammalian Evolution. 21: 1–17.
doi:
10.1007/s10914-013-9230-9.
S2CID17074668.
^Clemens, W. A. (2017). Procerberus (Cimolestidae, Mammalia) from the Latest Cretaceous and Earliest Paleocene of the Northern Western Interior, USA. PaleoBios, 34, 1-26.
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1dv645n5
^
abEberle, J. J. (1999). Bridging the transition between didelphodonts and taeniodonts. Journal of Paleontology, 73, 936-944.
^Schoch, R. M. 1986. Systematics, functional morphology, and macroevolution of the extinct mammalian order Taeniodonta. Peabody Museum Bulletin, 42:1-307
^LILLEGRAVEN, J. A. 1969. Latest Cretaceous mammals of upper part of Edmonton Formation of Alberta, and review of marsupial-placental dichotomy in mammalian evolution. The University of Kansas Paleontological Contributions, 50(Vertebrata 12), 122.
^MIDDLETON, M. D. 1983. Early Paleocene vertebrates of the Denver Basin, Colorado. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Colorado, Boulder, 404.
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doi:
10.1007/978-1-4684-2166-8_2.
ISBN978-1-4684-2168-2.
McKenna, M.C.; Bell, S.K. (1997). Classification of mammals above the species level. New York: Columbia University Press.
ISBN978-0-231-11013-6.
Rose, KD (2006). The beginning of the age of mammals. Baltimore: JHU Press.
ISBN978-0801884726.