New earliest Paleocene (Puercan) periptychid ‘condylarths’ from the Great Divide Basin, Wyoming, USA

Abstract

An earliest Paleocene (Puercan) locality in the China Butte Member of the Fort Union Formation in the Great Divide Basin (GDB) of Wyoming contains a diverse mammalian faunal assemblage, including a number of ‘condylarth’ taxa. From UCM locality 2011035, we describe three new periptychid ‘condylarths’ and report first occurrences of Maiorana noctiluca, Ampliconus antoni and Conacodon harbourae from the GDB. The new genus and species Miniconus jeanninae is characterized by a ridge-like metaconid and incipient paraconid on p4, and a molar parastylid. Based on its similarity to M. jeanninae and differences from other species of Oxyacodon, O. archibaldi is placed within the new genus Miniconus. A second new genus and species Beornus honeyi is characterized by its large size with inflated premolars and molars, and small molar paraconid. A new species of Conacodon, C. hettingeri, is similar to other species of Conacodon but differs in its m3 morphology. To examine the relationships of the three new GDB taxa to each other and to other Puercan ‘condylarths’ from the Western Interior of North America, a phylogenetic analysis was performed using 28 Puercan periptychid and arctocyonid taxa as well as the eutherian outgroup taxon Procerberus formicarum and 64 dental characters. The resulting strict consensus tree of 210 steps confirms that the three new species from the GDB fall within Periptychidae. Beornus honeyi forms a polytomy with Mithrandir gillianus and Hemithlaeus kowalevskianus. Conacodon hettingeri is recovered as the basal member of a clade that includes the other species of Conacodon. Miniconus jeanninae is the sister to M. archibaldi. Additionally, the early Puercan Mimatuta spp. and Maiorana noctiluca fall within the Arctocyonidae, supporting the phylogenetic placement of these taxa by other recent analyses. The occurrence of the three new periptychids in the GDB indicates that mammalian diversity is higher than previously suggested for the early Puercan. http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org.pub:4F31F461-814D-4C4A-99A9-3D7ED5D6701C