Category
page 1Late Cretaceous first appearances

Nypa fruticans
species of palm native to the coastlines and estuarine habitats of the Indian and Pacific Oceans
Arctocyonidae
Arctocyonidae (from Ancient Greek ἄρκτος (árktos), meaning "bear", and κύων (kúon), meaning "dog", and thus, "bear-dog") is an extinct, possibly polyphyletic family of placental mammals which lived from the late Cretaceous to the early Eocene. They were initially regarded as creodonts, though have since been reassigned to an order of their own, the Arctocyonia. Some have suggested that arctocyonids are ancestral to modern-day artiodactyls, or that they form a sister group. However, more recent phylogenetic analyses suggest that arctocyonids may represent an artificial grouping of extinct ungul
Leptictida
Leptictida (leptos iktis "small/slender weasel") is a possibly paraphyletic extinct order of eutherian mammals. Their classification is contentious: according to cladistic studies, they may be (distantly) related to Euarchontoglires (rodents, primates and their relatives), although they are more recently regarded as the first branch to split from basal eutherians. One recent large-scale cladistic analysis of eutherian mammals favored lepictidans as close to the placental crown-clade; and several other recent analyses that included data from Cretaceous non-eutherian mammals found Leptictis to b
Thoracosaurus
Thoracosaurus (chest lizard) is an extinct genus of long-snouted eusuchian which existed during the Late Cretaceous and Early Paleocene in North America and Europe.
Palaeoryctidae
Palaeoryctidae ("ancient diggers") is an extinct family of non-specialized eutherian mammals from extinct order Palaeoryctida, that lived in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa from the late Cretaceous to the middle Eocene.
Taeniolabidoidea
Taeniolabidoidea is a group of extinct mammals known whose fossils can be found in North America and Asia. They were the largest members of the extinct order Multituberculata, as well as the largest non-therian mammals. Lambdopsalis even provides direct fossil evidence of mammalian fur in a fairly good state of preservation for a 60-million-year-old animal. Some of these animals were large for their time; Taeniolabis taoensis is the largest known multituberculate and though smaller, Yubaatar is the largest known Mesozoic Asian multituberculate. T. taoensis averaged a body mass of .
Presbyornithidae
Presbyornithidae is an extinct group of birds found in North America, South America, East Asia, Australia and possibly North Africa. They had evolved by the Maastrichtian age of the Late Cretaceous and became extinct during the Aquitanian age of the Early Miocene. The family contains the oldest known neognath, Teviornis from the Nemegt Formation of Mongolia.
Pantolestidae
Pantolestidae ("all robbers") is a paraphyletic family of placental mammals from extinct order Pantolesta, that lived in North America, Asia and Europe from the early Paleocene to middle Oligocene. They first appear in North America, whence they spread to Europe and Asia.
Vegaviidae
Vegaviidae is a proposed extinct family of anseriform birds which lived during the Late Cretaceous and possibly the Paleocene. The monophyly of the family has been questioned by subsequent studies, with the only definitive member Vegavis known from the Maastrichtian stage of Antarctica, though some fossil genera from other continents have been assigned to this clade.
Djadochtatheriidae
Djadochtatheriidae is a family of fossil mammals within the extinct order Multituberculata. Remains are known from the Upper Cretaceous of Central Asia. These animals lived during the Mesozoic, also known as the "age of the dinosaurs". This family is part of the suborder of Cimolodonta. The taxon Djadochtatheriidae was named by Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska and Jørn Hurum in 1997.
Ptilodontidae
Ptilodontidae is a family of primitive mammals within the extinct order Multituberculata. Representatives are known from the Upper Cretaceous and Paleocene of North America.
Sphagesauridae
Sphagesauridae is a Gondwanan family of mesoeucrocodylians that lived during the Late Cretaceous. It was a clade of terrestrial crocodilians that evolved very mammal-like teeth and jaws. Both Sphagesaurus and Adamantinasuchus are known from the Turonian to Santonian of Brazil.
Sudamericidae
Sudamericidae is a family of gondwanathere mammals that lived during the late Cretaceous to Miocene. Its members include Lavanify and Vintana from the Cretaceous of Madagascar, Bharattherium (=Dakshina) from the Cretaceous of India, Gondwanatherium from the Cretaceous of Argentina, Sudamerica from the Paleocene of Argentina, and unnamed forms from the Eocene of Antarctica (closely related to Sudamerica) and Cretaceous of Tanzania. More recently, Patagonia, a mammal from the Colhuehuapian stage of the Miocene of southern South America, has been suggested to be a sudamericid.
Ferugliotheriidae
Ferugliotheriidae is one of three known families in the order Gondwanatheria, an enigmatic group of extinct mammals. Gondwanatheres have been classified as a group of uncertain affinities or as members of Multituberculata, a major extinct mammalian order. The best-known representative of Ferugliotheriidae is the genus Ferugliotherium from the Late Cretaceous epoch in Argentina. A second genus, Trapalcotherium, is known from a single tooth, a first lower molariform (molar-like tooth), from a different Late Cretaceous Argentinean locality. Another genus known from a single tooth (in this case, a
Ziphosuchia
Ziphosuchia is a clade of mesoeucrocodylian crocodyliforms that includes notosuchians and sebecosuchians.
Herpetotheriidae
Herpetotheriidae is an extinct family of metatherians, closely related to marsupials. Species of this family are generally reconstructed as terrestrial, and are considered morphologically similar to modern opossums. They are suggested to have been insectivores. Fossils of herpetotheriids come from North America, Asia, Europe, Africa, and perhaps South America. The oldest representative is Maastrichtidelphys from the latest Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) of the Netherlands and the youngest member is Amphiperatherium from the Middle Miocene of Europe. The group has been suggested to be paraphyletic,
Palaeoctopodidae
Palaeoctopodidae is an extinct family of incirrate octopuses that lived during the Late Cretaceous. It includes two genera, Keuppia and Palaeoctopus.
Acanthoceratidae
Acanthoceratidae is an extinct family of acanthoceratoid cephalopods in the order Ammonitida, known from the Upper Cretaceous. The type genus is Acanthoceras.
Sebecosuchia
Sebecosuchia (meaning "Sobek crocodiles") is an extinct group of mesoeucrocodylian crocodyliforms that includes the families Sebecidae and Baurusuchidae. The group was long thought to have first appeared in the Late Cretaceous with the baurusuchids, but Razanandrongobe pushes the origin of Sebecosuchia to the Middle Jurassic. The last surviving members of the group, the sebecids, appear to have lasted until the late Miocene or early Pliocene on the Greater Antilles. Fossils have been found primarily from South America but have also been found in Europe, North Africa, Madagascar, and the Indian
Acanthoceratoidea
Acanthoceratoidea, formerly Acanthocerataceae, is a superfamily of Upper Cretaceous ammonoid cephalopods belonging to the order Ammonitida, and comprising some 10 or so families.
Sloanbaataridae
Sloanbaataridae is a family of fossil mammals within the extinct order Multituberculata. Remains are known from the Upper Cretaceous of Mongolia. These small herbivores lived during the "age of the dinosaurs". This family is part of the suborder Cimolodonta. The family Sloanbaataridae was named by Kielan-Jaworowska, Z. in 1974.
Gobiguania
Gobiguania is an extinct clade of iguanian lizards from the Late Cretaceous. All known gobiguanians are endemic to the Gobi Desert of Mongolia. Gobiguania was given a phylogenetic definition by Jack Conrad and Mark Norell in 2007 as all taxa more closely related to Anchaurosaurus gilmorei than to Iguana iguana (the green iguana), Crotaphytus collaris (the common collared lizard), or Agama agama (the common agama). According to Conrad and Norell's phylogenetic analysis, Gobiguania includes Anchaurosaurus as well as several other Late Cretaceous lizards such as Ctenomastax, Temujinia, Saichangur
Cimolodontidae
Cimolodontidae is a family of fossil mammals within the extinct order Multituberculata. Representatives are known from the Upper Cretaceous and Paleocene of North America. The family Cimolodontidae was named by Othniel Charles Marsh in 1889 and is part of the suborder Cimolodonta within the superfamily Ptilodontoidea.
Eucosmodontidae
Eucosmodontidae is a poorly preserved family of fossil mammals within the extinct order Multituberculata. Representatives are known from strata dating from the Upper Cretaceous through the Lower Eocene of North America, as well as the Paleocene to Eocene of Europe. The family is part of the suborder of Cimolodonta. They might be related with the Djadochtatherioidea but without further finds, this remains unclear. Other than a partial snout, fossil evidence is limited to teeth. A 2021 study vindicates this relationship.