Deltatheridium
Sign in to saveDeltatheridium (meaning triangle beast or delta beast) is an extinct species of metatherian. It lived in what is now Mongolia during the Upper Cretaceous, circa 80 million years ago. A study in 2022 strongly suggested that Deltatheridium was a marsupial, making it the earliest known member of this group.
Wikidata facts
- Parent taxon
- Deltatheridiidae
- Image
- Deltatheridium praetrituberculare.JPG
Show 6 more facts
- taxon name
- Deltatheridium
- taxon rank
- genus
- Commons category
- Deltatheridium
- start time
- 84900000-0
- end time
- 70600000-0
- time period
- Late Cretaceous
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Encyclopedic overview
3 sectionsContents
- Other Mesozoic mammals from Mongolia
- References
- Further reading
Deltatheridium (meaning triangle beast or delta beast) is an extinct species of metatherian. It lived in what is now Mongolia during the Upper Cretaceous, circa 80 million years ago. A study in 2022 strongly suggested that Deltatheridium was a marsupial, making it the earliest known member of this group.
It had a length of about . Its teeth indicate it was carnivorous. One specimen of Archaeornithoides might attest to an attack by this mammal, the skull bearing tooth marks that match its teeth.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Deltatheridium” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.