Acta Palaeontologica Polonica

Reassessment of the late Triassic symmetrodont mammal Woutersia

Denise Signogneau-Russell and Renate Hahn

Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 40 (3), 1995: 245-260

Since the creation of the taxon Woutersia mirabilis Sigogneau-Russell 1983, on a lower molar and two upper molars from the French locality of Saint-Nicolas-de-Port (late Triassic), quite a number of additional mammalian teeth have come to light; among them, are not only some elements undoubtedly belonging to this species, but also 5 teeth interpreted here as representing a second species of Woutersia W. butleri sp. n. The peculiarities of this second species, especially in the upper molars, allow in turn the presentation and discussion of another upper molar fiom the same locality, which had remained an enigma for a long time. Though too large to be attributed to W. butleri, this tooth exhibits at a higher degree some characters already detected in the latter species, suggesting that it could still belong to Woutersia; but in that case, its sharing of some derived characters with upper molars of docodonts implies at least a certain parallelism between the new family Woutersiidae and primitive Docodonta.

Key words: late Triassic, molars, therians, docodonts.


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