Kuehneotherium

Kuehneotherium is an early mammaliaform genus, previously considered a holothere, that lived during the Late Triassic-Early Jurassic Epochs and is characterized by reversed-triangle pattern of molar cusps. Although many fossils have been found, the fossils are limited to teeth, dental fragments, and mandible fragments. The genus includes Kuehneotherium praecursoris and all related species. It was first named and described by Doris M. Kermack, K. A. Kermack, and Frances Mussett in November 1967. The family Kuehneotheriidae and the genus Kuehneotherium were created to house the single species Kuehneotherium praecursoris. Modeling based upon a comparison of the Kuehneotherium jaw with other mammaliaforms indicates it was about the size of a modern-day shrew between 4 and 5.5 g at adulthood.

Kuehneotherium

Thomas E. Williamson, Stephen L. Brusatte, Gregory P. Wilson · CC BY 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
KuehneotheriidaePBDB
Diet
insectivorePBDB, for Mammaliaformes
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Mammaliaformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Amniota

Time the record covers

At most 13 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 205.7 Mya and 192.9 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Late Triassic — about 5 of 10 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 5 of 10 occurrencesEarly Jurassic206–205 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences205–205 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences205–204 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences204–204 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences204–203 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences203–203 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences203–203 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences203–202 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences202–202 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences202–201 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences201–201 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences201–200 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences200–200 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences200–199 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences199–199 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences199–198 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences198–198 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences198–197 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences197–197 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences197–197 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences197–196 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences196–196 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences196–195 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences195–195 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences195–194 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences194–194 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences194–193 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences193–193 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences206.2 Mya192.4 Mya

10 occurrences of Kuehneotherium on record, most of them in the Late Triassic. 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

10 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

2 formations

Grès à Avicula contorta — 48.62°N, 6.33°EFleming Fjord — 71.48°N, 22.68°W

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The named rock units Kuehneotherium has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 7 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Kuehneotherium and its relatives

Late Triassic

Where Kuehneotherium and its relatives were recorded in the Late Triassic.

Found in the same rock

90 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 9 sites for Kuehneotherium, 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

9 references

Each of the 10 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 content1

Picture of Kuehneotherium

Credit
Thomas E. Williamson, Stephen L. Brusatte, Gregory P. Wilson
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

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 itKuehneotheriidae through timeFormations of the Late TriassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Kermack et al. 1968