A new eutherian mammal from the Late Cretaceous of Kazakhstan
Alexander Averianov, J. David Archibald, and Gareth J. Dyke
A dentary fragment containing the last two molars (m2–3) from the Late Cretaceous (Santonian–?Campanian) Bostobe
Formation exposed at the locality of Shakh Shakh, northeast Aral Sea region, Kazakhstan, is attributed to a
new taxon of Zhelestidae, Zhalmouzia bazhanovi Averianov and Archibald gen. et sp. nov. This specimen is only the
second mammal described from Shakh Shakh, the unidentifiable eutherian Beleutinus orlovi Bazhanov, 1972, being
the first, and it is only the fifth Mesozoic mammal named from Kazakhstan. Zhalmouzia Averianov and Archibald
gen. nov. belongs to the endemic clade of Middle Asian zhelestids (Zhelestinae), better known from the Turonian of
Uzbekistan.
Alexander Averianov [dzharakuduk@mail.ru], Zoological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Universitetskaya nab. 1, Saint Petersburg 199034, Russia; J. David Archibald [darchibald@sunstroke.sdsu.edu], Department of Biology, San Diego State University, San Diego, California, 92182-4614, USA; Gareth J. Dyke [gareth.dyke@soton.ac.uk], Ocean and Earth Sciences, National Oceanography Centre, University of Southampton, Southampton SO14 3ZH UK.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (for details please see creativecommons.org), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Full text (420.5 kB)