Donodon

Donodon is an extinct genus of mammal from the Ksar Metlili Formation of Talssint, Morocco, which has been dated to the Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous epochs. The type species D. perscriptoris was described in 1991 by the palaeontologist Denise Sigogneau-Russell. A second species, D. minor, was named in 2022. Donodon was a member of Cladotheria, a group that includes therian mammals and some of their closest relatives. It differed from dryolestids in having upper molars that were not compressed mesiodistally. Some studies have suggested that it was closely related to various South American cladotherians in the clade Meridiolestida, with specific similarities to Mesungulatum, a herbivorous mesungulatid, being noted. On the other hand, a 2022 phylogenetic analysis found it to be only distantly related to meridiolestidans, and instead closer to crown group therians.

No picture of Donodon was found. Wikipedia, Wikidata, iDigBio and Smithsonian Open Access were searched and had none. GBIF was asked, and what came back is not recorded: nothing, or a picture this site could not tie to Donodon, or no answer at all. This entry cannot say which.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
DonodontidaePBDB
Diet
insectivorePBDB, for Mammaliaformes
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Mammaliaformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Mammalia

Time the record covers

At most 4.1 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 145.06 Mya and 141 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Late Jurassic — about 2 of 4 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 2 of 4 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous145–145 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences145–145 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences145–145 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences145–145 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences145–144 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences144–144 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences144–144 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences144–144 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences144–144 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences144–144 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences144–143 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences143–143 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences143–143 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences143–143 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences143–143 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences143–143 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences143–142 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences142–142 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences142–142 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences142–142 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences142–142 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences142–142 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences142–141 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences141–141 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences141–141 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences141–141 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences145.6 Mya140.5 Mya

4 occurrences of Donodon on record, most of them in the Early Cretaceous. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

4 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

1 formation

Ksar Metlili — 32.70°N, 3.22°W

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The named rock units Donodon has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Donodon and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

Where Donodon and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

85 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Donodon, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

2 references

Each of the 4 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content0

No picture of Donodon was found. Wikipedia, Wikidata, iDigBio and Smithsonian Open Access were searched and had none.

GBIF was asked, and what came back is not recorded: nothing, or a picture this site could not tie to Donodon, or no answer at all. This entry cannot say which.

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itDonodontidae through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Sigogneau-Russell 1991