Bharattherium
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Bharattherium Temporal range: 70–66 Ma Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) and Paleocene |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Family: | †Sudamericidae |
| Genus: |
†Bharattherium Prasad et al., 2007 |
| Species: | †B. bonapartei |
| Binomial name | |
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Bharattherium bonapartei Prasad et al., 2007 |
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| Synonyms | |
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Bharattherium is a mammal that lived in India during the Maastrichtian (latest Cretaceous) and possibly the Paleocene. The genus has a single species, Bharattherium bonapartei. It is part of the gondwanathere family Sudamericidae, which is also found in Madagascar and South America during the latest Cretaceous. The first fossil of Bharattherium was discovered in 1989 and published in 1997, but the animal was not named until 2007, when two teams independently named the animal Bharattherium bonapartei and Dakshina jederi. The latter name is now a synonym. Bharattherium is known from a total of eight isolated fossil teeth, including one incisor and seven molariforms (molar-like teeth, either premolars or true molars).
Bharattherium molariforms are high, curved teeth, with a height of 6 to 8.5 millimetres (0.24 to 0.33 in). In a number of teeth tentatively identified as fourth lower molariforms (mf4), there is a large furrow on one side and a deep cavity (infundibulum) in the middle of the tooth. Another tooth, perhaps a third lower molariform, has two furrows on one side and three infundibula on the other. The tooth enamel has traits that have been interpreted as protecting against cracks in the teeth. The hypsodont (high-crowned) teeth of sudamericids like Bharattherium are reminiscent of later grazing mammals, and the discovery of grass in Indian fossil sites contemporaneous with those yielding Bharattherium suggest that sudamericids were indeed grazers.
A gondwanathere tooth, catalogued as VPL/JU/NKIM/25, was first discovered in the Maastrichtian (latest Cretaceous, about 70–66 million years ago) Intertrappean Beds of Naskal, India, in 1989, but it was not identified as such until another gondwanathere, Lavanify, was found on Madagascar in the middle 1990s. The discoveries of Lavanify and VPL/JU/NKIM/25 were announced in Nature in 1997. Gondwanatheres were previously known only from Argentina; these discoveries extended the range of the gondwanathere family Sudamericidae across the continents of the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana.
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