Ectoconus
Genus of mammals (fossil)
Ectoconus (Greek: "outside" (ektos), "cone" (konos)) is an extinct genus of terrestrial herbivorous mammal of the family Periptychidae, endemic to North America during the Early Paleocene subepochs (66, 63.3 mya) existing for approximately 2.7 million years. Its skull is about 16 cm in length.
01Taxonomy
Ectoconus was stoutly built, sheep-sized condylarth and had a small braincase, short, strong limbs and a heavy tail. Its feet had five hooved digits much in the manner of extremely primitive ungulates. It was named by Cope (1884) and was synonymized subjectively with Conoryctes by Cope (1885). It was assigned to Periptychidae by Cope (1884), Cope (1888), Osborn and Earle (1895), Matthew (1937) and Carroll (1988); and to Periptychinae by Archibald (1998) and Eberle (2003).
Nearly complete skeletons of Ectoconus have been found in New Mexico and it is one of the most completely known Paleocene mammals.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Ectoconus”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Ectoconus skeletal 2.png by https://www.flickr.com/people/126377022@N07, No restrictions
- Ectoconus restoration.png by https://www.flickr.com/people/126377022@N07, No restrictions
Fathomly is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation. Spotted a problem? Tell us.