Triconodont
| Eutriconodonts Temporal range: Early Jurassic - Late Cretaceous, 190–70 Ma |
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| Examples of several eutriconodonts. Clockwise: Repenomamus, Volaticotherium, Jeholodens and Yanoconodon. These occupy vastly different ecological niches: bulky semi-fossorial carnivore, glider, arboreal insectivore and aquatic piscivore, respectively. | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: |
†Eutriconodonta Kermack et al., 1973 |
| Subgroups | |
Eutriconodonta is an order of early mammals. Eutriconodonts existed in Asia, Europe, North and South America during the Jurassic and the Cretaceous periods. The order was named by Kermack et al. in 1973 as a replacement name for the paraphyletic Triconodonta.
Traditionally seen as the classical Mesozoic small mammalian insectivores, discoveries over the years have ironically shown them to be among the best examples of the diversity of mammals in this time period, including a vast variety of bauplans, ecological niches and locomotion methods.
"Triconodonta" had long been used as the name for an order of early mammals which were close relatives of the ancestors of all present-day mammals, characterized by molar teeth with three main cusps on a crown that were arranged in a row. The group originally included only the family Triconodontidae and taxa that were later assigned to the separate family Amphilestidae, but was later expanded to include other taxa such as Morganucodon or Sinoconodon. The phylogenetic analyses found that all these taxa did not form a natural group, and that some traditional "triconodonts" were more closely related to therian mammals than others. Some traditional "triconodonts" do seem to form a natural group (or "clade"), and this was given the name Eutriconodonta, or "true triconodonts).
Most analyses use only dental and mandibular characters. Gao et al. (2010) conducted a second analysis as well, using a modified version of the matrix from the analysis of Luo et al. (2007); this analysis involved a broader range of Mesozoic mammaliaforms and more characters, including postcranial ones. Both Luo et al. (2007) and the second analysis of Gao et al. (2010) recovered a more inclusive monophyletic Eutriconodonta that also contained gobiconodontids and Amphilestes; in the second analysis of Gao et al. it also contained Juchilestes (recovered as amphidontid in their first analysis, the only amphidontid included in their second analysis). However, Gao et al. (2010) stressed that jeholodentids and gobiconodontids are the only eutriconodonts with known postcranial skeletons; according to the authors, it remains uncertain whether the results of their second analysis represent true phylogeny or are merely "a by-product of long branch attraction of jeholodentids and gobiconodontids". Phylogenetic studies conducted by Zheng et al. (2013), Zhou et al. (2013) and Yuan et al. (2013) recovered monophyletic Eutriconodonta containing triconodontids, gobiconodontids, Amphilestes, Jeholodens and Yanoconodon.
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