Acheronodon
Encyclopedia
Acheronodon is a genus
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of herbivorous arboreal mammal
Mammal
Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...

 which belongs to the family
Family (biology)
In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 Microcosmodontidae
Microcosmodontidae
Microcosmodontidae is a poorly preserved family of fossil mammals within the extinct order Multituberculata. Representatives are known from the Upper Cretaceous though the Lower Paleocene of North America. The family is part of the suborder Cimolodonta...

and which was endemic to North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 during the Early Paleocene subepoch (65—56.8 mya) and in existence for approximately .

It is a member of the extinct order Multituberculata
Multituberculata
The Multituberculata were a group of rodent-like mammals that existed for approximately one hundred and twenty million years—the longest fossil history of any mammal lineage—but were eventually outcompeted by rodents, becoming extinct during the early Oligocene. At least 200 species are...

and lies within the suborder Cimolodonta
Cimolodonta
The Cimolodonta are a taxon of extinct mammals that lived from the Cretaceous to the Eocene. They were some of the more derived members of the extinct order Multituberculata. They probably lived something of a rodent-like existence until their ecological niche was assumed by true rodents...

.


The species Acheronodon garbani is known from fossil
Fossil
Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...

s found in the Puercan (Paleocene)-age formations of Tullock Formation in Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...

 (USA) and possible specimens from the Porcupine Hills in Alberta
Alberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...

, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. The holotype
Holotype
A holotype is a single physical example of an organism, known to have been used when the species was formally described. It is either the single such physical example or one of several such, but explicitly designated as the holotype...

was found in Montana.
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