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Putative Triassic stem mammal Tikitherium copei is a Neogene shrew

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Abstract

The putative stem mammal taxon Tikitherium copei was erected based on a single tooth, identified as an upper molar, from the Upper Triassic Tiki Formation of India. Originally thought to be Carnian in age, this taxon was regarded as the oldest mammaliaform in the fossil record. We show that this tooth actually represents the last upper premolar (P4) of a Neogene crocidurine soricid insectivore (order Lipotyphla).

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Fig. 2

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Data availability

The modern crocidurine specimens have been accessioned into a recognized public collection (MNHN-ZM and ZIN), where they are available for study. Virtual models of the specimens MNHN-ZM 1981 − 331 and ZIN 102775 are available in MorphoBank project No. 3885 (https://doi.org/10.7934/P3885).

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Acknowledgements

We thank two anonymous reviewers for reading the paper and providing useful suggestions. We are grateful to Dr. Violaine Nicolas (MNHN, Paris) and Dr. Alexey Abramov (ZIN, Saint Petersburg) for providing access to the Suncus specimens. This work was supported by the “Taxon” Core Facility Centre of ZIN.

Funding

This work was supported by the Russian Science Foundation (project 19–14–00020–P) and the Zoological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences (project 122031100282–2).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Zoological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Universitetskaya nab. 1, Saint Petersburg, 199034, Russia

    Alexander O. Averianov & Leonid L. Voyta

Authors
  1. Alexander O. Averianov
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  2. Leonid L. Voyta
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Contributions

AA designed the research and acquired funding, composed the data matrix on Docodonta, made phylogenetic analyses, and prepared Fig. 2. AA and LV wrote the main manuscript text. LV composed the data matrix on Soricidae and prepared Fig. 1.

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Correspondence to Alexander O. Averianov.

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Online Resource 1:

Docodonta character-taxon matrix

Online Resource 2:

Crocidurine character-taxon matrix

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Averianov, A.O., Voyta, L.L. Putative Triassic stem mammal Tikitherium copei is a Neogene shrew. J Mammal Evol 31, 10 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10914-024-09703-w

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