Pantodonta

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

iPantodonta Fossil range: Paleocene to Oligocene
Barylambda faberi
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Subphylum: Vertebrata Class: Mammalia Order: Pantodonta
Families
Wangliidae Titanoideidae Coryphodontidae Pantolambdodontidae Pantolambdidae Barylambdidae Cyriacotheriidae Harpyodidae Bemalambdidae Pastoralodontidae

The Pantodonta are an order of now extinct placental mammals. Pantodonts are well known from the Paleocene of North America and Asia, and one early genus, Alcidedorbignya, that was found in the Paleocene of South America. The earliest Pantodonts were still comparably small animals, and they may have been omnivores, although the later Pantodonts were all herbivores.

[edit] Classification

In the past, the species now classified as Pantodonta were, together with the Dinocerata and the Xenungulata species, unified in one order: the Amblypoda (which means "blunt foot").

But this old classification turned out to be incorrect, and the species it contained were reclassified into three separate orders.

[edit] References

http://www.keltationsart.com/Titanoides.htm http://www.paleocene-mammals.de/large_herbivores.htm