Nature 370, 134 - 136 (14 July 1994); doi:10.1038/370134a0

Primitive fossil rodent from Inner Mongolia and its implications for mammalian phylogeny

Jin Meng^*†, André R. Wyss^‡, Mary R. Dawson & Renjie Zhai^†

^* Department of Vertebrate Paleontology, American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West at 79th Street, New York, New York 10024, USA
^† Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, PO Box 643, Beijing, China
^‡ Department of Geological Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, California, 93106, USA
^§ Section of Vertebrate Paleontology, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213, USA

THE evolutionary origin of rodents is obscured by the group's sudden and highly transformed first appearance in the fossil record^1,2 in the latest Paleocene. We report here the discovery of nearly complete dental remains of an extraordinary new primitive rodent from strata of transitional Paleocene-Eocene age in Inner Mongolia, China. The strikingly conservative morphological features of this taxon, Tribosphenomys minutus, gen. et sp. nov., substantially modify previous ideas about the ancestral rodent morphotype, which in turn has important implications for understanding the origin of rodents and their relationship to other eutherian mammals. This new fossil, in conjunction with recent morphological³ and molecular^4,5 evidence confirming rodent monophyly, indicates the need for a reassessment of phylogenetic affinities among gliriform eutherians. Our results indicate a sister-group position of the new taxon to other rodents, and support the alliance of lagomorphs (rabbits) and rodents (cohort Glires). They also suggest the paraphyly of an extinct assemblage, the 'Eurymylidae', and reveal an unexpectedly complex pattern of character evolution near the ancestry of Rodentia.

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