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A new multituberculate from the latest Cretaceous of central China and its implications for multituberculate tooth homologies and occlusion

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Abstract

Cimolodontan multituberculates are common in the Late Cretaceous and Paleocene of central Asia; they are rarely known from regions south of the Mongolian plateau. Here, we report a new genus and species of multituberculate, Erythrobaatar ganensis gen. et sp. nov., from the Late Cretaceous of Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province, central China, representing the southernmost record of Cretaceous multituberculates in Eurasia. The new species is based on two well-preserved specimens that include cranial and postcranial materials. With a cranium and dentary length of 83 and 66 mm, respectively; it is one of the largest known Cretaceous multituberculates from Eurasia. The present work focuses on the description of the craniodental morphology of the new species, in comparison with that of other Late Cretaceous and Paleogene cimolodontans in order to establish the new taxon. Erythrobaatar ganensis is most closely related to Yubaatar zhongyuanensis and Yubaatar qianzhouensis in the shape and size of the skull and teeth. Phylogenetic analyses place the new species within Taeniolabidoidea, which consists mostly of Late Cretaceous and Paleogene cimolodontans from Asia and North America. The new material also sheds light on tooth replacement, reduction, homologies, and occlusion of multituberculates with a focus on cimolodontans.

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Data availability

The phylogenetic datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available in the Morphobank repository: http://morphobank.org/permalink/?P4398. The CT datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due to ongoing work on multituberculate skeletal anatomy but are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Shuhua Xie and Shijie Li (Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China—IVPP) for specimen preparation; Yumao Hou, Pengfei Yin for CT scanning of the specimens; Wei Gao (IVPP) and Nicole Wong (American Museum of Natural History) for photography; Shengqun Lou (IVPP) for segmentation of the CT data; Qiang Wang (IVPP) for discussions concerning localities; Meng Chen (Nanjing University, Nanjing, China) and David W. Krause (Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Denver, USA) for sharing the scanning data of Ptilodus and Taeniolabis taoensis, respectively; David W. Krause, Lucas N. Weaver (University of Michigan), and Simone Hoffmann (New York Institute of Technology) for their insights and helpful comments; Simone Hoffmann and Darin Croft (Journal of Mammalian Evolution) for constructive editorial efforts.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41404022; 42122010; 41688103), the Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS (2019076); and the Kalbfleisch Fellowship, Richard Gilder Graduate School, American Museum of Natural History.

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  1. Xingsheng Jin and Fangyuan Mao authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Zhejiang Museum of Natural History, Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou, 310014, China

    Xingsheng Jin & Tianming Du

  2. Key Laboratory of Evolutionary Systematics of Vertebrates, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100044, China

    Fangyuan Mao & Yihan Yang

  3. Division of Paleontology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, 10024, USA

    Fangyuan Mao & Jin Meng

  4. School of Earth Sciences, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Yihan Yang

  5. Earth and Environmental Sciences, Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, NY, 10016, USA

    Jin Meng

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  1. Xingsheng Jin
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  2. Fangyuan Mao
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  3. Tianming Du
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Correspondence to Fangyuan Mao or Jin Meng.

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Jin, X., Mao, F., Du, T. et al. A new multituberculate from the latest Cretaceous of central China and its implications for multituberculate tooth homologies and occlusion. J Mammal Evol 30, 1–20 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10914-022-09636-2

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