Indobaatar, first multituberculate from Jurassic of India

[Ben Creisler <bcreisler@gmail.com>]

From: Ben Creisler
bcreisler@gmail.com

A new online paper:

Varun Parmar, Guntupalli V. R. Prasad & Deepak Kumar (2013)
The first multituberculate mammal from India
Naturwissenschaften (advance online publication)
DOI: 10.1007/s00114-013-1047-0
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00114-013-1047-0



Mesozoic deposits of the former Gondwanaland are depauperate in early
mammals, in general, and multituberculate mammals, in particular.
Until now, the oldest multituberculate mammals known from the
Gondwanan continents come from the Early Cretaceous of Morocco, NW
Africa. Here, we report the presence of a new multituberculate mammal,
Indobaatar zofiae gen. et sp. nov., from the Lower/Middle Jurassic
Kota Formation, Pranhita-Godavari valley in peninsular India. This is
the first record of a multituberculate from the Mesozoic rocks of
India and possibly predates the oldest known multituberculates from
Gondwanan continents. The new specimen, representing an upper premolar
(P4), compares well with the upper premolar morphology of
Eobaatariinae multituberculates known from the Early Cretaceous of
Mongolia, China, England, and Spain. Together with the recent findings
of cimolodontan multituberculates from the Early Cretaceous of
Australia and Late Cretaceous of South America, the new discovery
indicates a wide temporal and spatial distribution for
multituberculate mammals in the former Gondwanaland.