Bi Shundong, Jin Xingsheng, Li Shuo, Du Tianming
Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing , China ; Department of Biology, Indiana University of Pennsylvania , Indiana, PA , United States of America.
Zhejiang Museum of Natural History , Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province , China.
PeerJ. 2015 Apr 14;3:e896. doi: 10.7717/peerj.896. eCollection 2015.
We report a new deltatheroidan mammal from the Upper Cretaceous of Henna, China. The new taxon, Lotheridium mengi, is based on a nearly complete skull and associated lower jaws with full adult dentition. Deltatheroidans are known mostly from fragmentary specimens from Asia and North America. Previous views on deltatheroidan relationships were diverse, but recent studies favored their metatherian affinity. The new specimen represents the most complete skull known for deltatheroidans and provides additional evidence that deltatheroidans already had the distinctive metatherian dental formula and replacement pattern and several other derived metatherian features, supporting the metatherian status for this clade. The new species also indicates that deltatheroidan mammals were more diverse and had broader geographical distributions than previously thought.
我们报道了一种来自中国河南上白垩统的新的三角齿兽类哺乳动物。新分类单元孟氏洛氏兽（Lotheridium mengi）基于一个近乎完整的头骨以及与之关联的带有完整成年齿列的下颌骨。三角齿兽类主要以来自亚洲和北美的碎片标本而为人所知。此前关于三角齿兽类亲缘关系的观点多种多样，但近期的研究支持它们与后兽类有亲缘关系。新标本代表了已知最为完整的三角齿兽类头骨，并提供了更多证据，表明三角齿兽类已经具有独特的后兽类齿式和替换模式以及其他一些后兽类的衍生特征，支持了这一分类单元的后兽类地位。新物种还表明，三角齿兽类哺乳动物比之前认为的更加多样化，且地理分布更广。
