Gomphos

Gomphos; Temporal range: Early Eocene
	Drawings and SEM images of cheek teeth of Gomphos elkema
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Infraclass:	Placentalia
Grandorder:	Glires
Genus:	†Gomphos; Shevyreva, 1975
Species
	G. elkema Shevyreva 1975; G. shevyrevae Meng et al 2009;

Gomphos is an extinct genus of early lagomorphs from the early Eocene of the China and Mongolia.¹²

Gomphos was first named in 1975 from material found in the Gashato Formation.¹ There are currently two species in this genus: G. elkema, from the Greek word γόμφος (Romanized gomphos), which means "peg", but can also be used to signify molar teeth; and G. shevyrevae was named later in honour of the lead author who named the first original genus and species of Gomphos elkema.

Analysis supports Gomphos as one of the earliest lagomorphs, the group that includes rabbits, hares and pikas.³ It is likely that lagomorphs split off from the rest of the placental mammals around the Cretaceous-Palaeogene boundary.³

Sources

The Beginning of the Age of Mammals by Kenneth D. Rose
The Rise of Placental Mammals: Origins and Relationships of the Major Extant Clades by Kenneth D. Rose and J. David Archibald

References

Shevyreva, N. S., V. M. Chkhikvadze, and V. I. Zhegallo. "New data on the vertebrate fauna of the Gashato Formation, Mongolian People’s Republic." Bulletin of the Georgian Academy of Science 77 (1975): 225-228.
MENG, J., BOWEN, G. J., JIE, Y., KOCH, P. L., TING, S., QIAN, L., & JIN, X. (2004). Gomphos elkema (Glires, Mammalia) from the Erlian Basin: evidence for the early Tertiary Bumbanian land mammal age in Nei-Mongol, China. American Museum Novitates, 1-24.
Asher, Robert J., Jin Meng, John R. Wible, Malcolm C. McKenna, Guillermo W. Rougier, Demberlyn Dashzeveg, and Michael J. Novacek. "Stem Lagomorpha and the antiquity of Glires." Science 307, no. 5712 (2005): 1091-1094.

External links

Gomphos in the Paleobiology Database

[Shevyreva-1] Shevyreva, N. S., V. M. Chkhikvadze, and V. I. Zhegallo. "New data on the vertebrate fauna of the Gashato Formation, Mongolian People’s Republic." Bulletin of the Georgian Academy of Science 77 (1975): 225-228.

[Meng-2] MENG, J., BOWEN, G. J., JIE, Y., KOCH, P. L., TING, S., QIAN, L., & JIN, X. (2004). Gomphos elkema (Glires, Mammalia) from the Erlian Basin: evidence for the early Tertiary Bumbanian land mammal age in Nei-Mongol, China. American Museum Novitates, 1-24.

[Asher-3] Asher, Robert J., Jin Meng, John R. Wible, Malcolm C. McKenna, Guillermo W. Rougier, Demberlyn Dashzeveg, and Michael J. Novacek. "Stem Lagomorpha and the antiquity of Glires." Science 307, no. 5712 (2005): 1091-1094.

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