Gondwanatheria

Gondwanatheria is an extinct group of mammaliaforms that lived in parts of Gondwana, including Madagascar, India, South America, Africa, and Antarctica during the Upper Cretaceous through the Miocene. Until recently, they were known only from fragmentary remains. They are generally considered to be closely related to the multituberculates and likely the euharamiyidians, well known from the Northern Hemisphere, with which they form the clade Allotheria.

Gondwanatheria

Hemiauchenia · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

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

Time the record covers

At least 51 million years on record.

The record covers at least 72.2 Mya to 21 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 100.5 Mya to 17.5 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 0 of 33 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 23 of 33 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 2 of 33 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 5 of 33 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 2 of 33 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 1 of 33 occurrencesMiocene102–99 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences99–96 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences96–94 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences94–91 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences91–88 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences88–85 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences85–82 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences82–79 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences79–76 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences76–73 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences73–71 Mya — about 6 occurrences71–68 Mya — about 10 occurrences68–65 Mya — about 6 occurrences65–62 Mya — about 1 occurrence62–59 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences50–47 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences47–45 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences45–42 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences42–39 Mya — about 2 occurrences39–36 Mya — about 2 occurrences36–33 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences33–30 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences30–27 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences27–24 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences22–19 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences19–16 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences72.2 Mya21 Mya102 Mya16 Mya

33 occurrences of Gondwanatheria on record, most of them in the Late 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

33 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

14 formations

Maevarano — 15.91°S, 46.58°EMaevarano — 15.98°S, 46.05°EMaevarano — 16.10°S, 45.73°ELos Alamitos — 41.95°S, 66.33°WDivisadero Largo — 32.00°S, 68.00°WDivisadero Largo — 32.87°S, 68.94°WChorrillo — 50.51°S, 72.56°WSalamanca — 45.50°S, 67.18°WIntertrappean Beds — 16.17°N, 74.88°EGalula — 8.93°S, 33.20°EAllen — 39.78°S, 66.70°WAndesitas Huancache — 42.78°S, 69.86°WPozo — 7.33°S, 74.95°WYahuarango — 9.49°S, 72.76°WLa Meseta — 64.23°S, 56.67°WSarmiento — 43.28°S, 65.48°WDorotea — 50.70°S, 72.53°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Gondwanatheria has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Gondwanatheria and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Gondwanatheria and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

377 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 24 sites for Gondwanatheria, 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

27 references

Each of the 33 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. 15 further references are not listed. 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 content1

Picture of Gondwanatheria

Credit
Hemiauchenia
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Gondwanatheria was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

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 itAllotheria through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Mones 1987