caa a22 4500 445326077 CHVBK 20180317142721.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170323e20110901xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s10914-011-9162-1 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s10914-011-9162-1 Protungulatum , Confirmed Cretaceous Occurrence of an Otherwise Paleocene Eutherian (Placental?) Mammal [Elektronische Daten] [J. Archibald, Yue Zhang, Tony Harper, Richard Cifelli] Neither pre-Cenozoic crown eutherian mammals (placentals) nor archaic ungulates ("condylarths”) are known with certainty based on the fossil record. Herein we report a new species of the Paleocene archaic ungulate ("condylarth”) Protungulatum from undisputed Late Cretaceous aged rocks in Montana USA based on an isolated last upper premolar, indicating rare representatives of these common early Tertiary mammals appeared in North America a minimum of 300k  years before the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs. The other 1200 mammal specimens from the locality are characteristic Late Cretaceous taxa. This discovery overturns the current hypothesis that archaic ungulates did not appear in North America until after the Cretaceous/Tertiary (K/T) boundary and also suggests that other reports of North American Late Cretaceous archaic ungulates may be correct. Recent studies, including ours, cannot determine whether Protungulatum does or does not belong to the crown clade Placentalia. Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 2011 Eutheria nationallicence Placentalia nationallicence Archaic ungulate nationallicence Protungulatum nationallicence Late Cretaceous nationallicence Hell Creek Formation nationallicence Archibald J. Department of Biology, San Diego State University, 92182-4614, San Diego, CA, USA aut Zhang Yue Department of Biology, San Diego State University, 92182-4614, San Diego, CA, USA aut Harper Tony Department of Biology, San Diego State University, 92182-4614, San Diego, CA, USA aut Cifelli Richard Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, University of Oklahoma, 73072, Norman, OK, USA aut Journal of Mammalian Evolution Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com 18/3(2011-09-01), 153-161 1064-7554 18:3<153 2011 18 10914 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10914-011-9162-1 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10914-011-9162-1 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Archibald J. Department of Biology, San Diego State University, 92182-4614, San Diego, CA, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Zhang Yue Department of Biology, San Diego State University, 92182-4614, San Diego, CA, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Harper Tony Department of Biology, San Diego State University, 92182-4614, San Diego, CA, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Cifelli Richard Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, University of Oklahoma, 73072, Norman, OK, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Journal of Mammalian Evolution Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com 18/3(2011-09-01), 153-161 1064-7554 18:3<153 2011 18 10914 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer