Kimbetohia
Encyclopedia
Kimbetohia is a genus of mammal
Mammal
Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...

s from the extinct order Multituberculata
Multituberculata
The Multituberculata were a group of rodent-like mammals that existed for approximately one hundred and twenty million years—the longest fossil history of any mammal lineage—but were eventually outcompeted by rodents, becoming extinct during the early Oligocene. At least 200 species are...

. It lived from the Upper Cretaceous
Cretaceous
The Cretaceous , derived from the Latin "creta" , usually abbreviated K for its German translation Kreide , is a geologic period and system from circa to million years ago. In the geologic timescale, the Cretaceous follows the Jurassic period and is followed by the Paleogene period of the...

 to the Paleocene
Paleocene
The Paleocene or Palaeocene, the "early recent", is a geologic epoch that lasted from about . It is the first epoch of the Palaeogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era...

 in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The genus
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 was named by the paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson
George Gaylord Simpson
George Gaylord Simpson was an American paleontologist. Simpson was perhaps the most influential paleontologist of the twentieth century, and a major participant in the modern evolutionary synthesis, contributing Tempo and mode in evolution , The meaning of evolution and The major features of...

, in 1936 (Simpson, 1936). Kimbetohia has also been called Kimbetohi.

K. campi

The species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 Kimbetohia campi has been discovered in New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...

 and Wyoming
Wyoming
Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...

, in the Nacimiento Formation
Nacimiento Formation
The Nacimiento Formation is a sedimentary rock formation found in the San Juan Basin of western New Mexico and named for the Nacimiento Mountains...

 of the San Juan Basin
San Juan Basin
The San Juan Basin is a geologic structural basin in the Four Corners region of the Southwestern United States; its main portion covers around , encompassing much of northwestern New Mexico, southwest Colorado, and parts of Arizona and Utah....

. The deposits date from the Maastrichtian
Maastrichtian
The Maastrichtian is, in the ICS' geologic timescale, the latest age or upper stage of the Late Cretaceous epoch or Upper Cretaceous series, the Cretaceous period or system, and of the Mesozoic era or erathem. It spanned from 70.6 ± 0.6 Ma to 65.5 ± 0.3 Ma...

 stage
Faunal stage
In chronostratigraphy, a stage is a succession of rock strata laid down in a single age on the geologic timescale, which usually represents millions of years of deposition. A given stage of rock and the corresponding age of time will by convention have the same name, and the same boundaries.Rock...

 of the Upper Cretaceous to the Puercan
Puercan
The Puercan North American Stage on the geologic timescale is the North American faunal stage according to the North American Land Mammal Ages chronology , typically set from 65,000,000 to 63,300,000 years BP lasting . It is usually considered to be within the Paleocene...

 stage of the Paleocene.

The species was first described by Simpson in 1936 (Simpson, 1936). Some material associated with this species was referred to Clemensodon
Clemensodon
Clemensodon is a genus of extinct mammal from the Upper Cretaceous of North America. It lived during the end of the Mesozoic, also known as the "age of the dinosaurs". It was a member of the extinct order of Multituberculata within the suborder of Cimolodonta and family Eucosmodontidae...

 megaloba
, by D. W. Krause in 1992.

?K. mzaie

Kimbetohia mzaie is a possible, unpublished species from the deposits of the Denver Formation, in Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...

, which have been dated to the Puercan stage of the Lower Paleocene.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK