Lavocatia

Lavocatia
Temporal range: Early Cretaceous
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Multituberculata
Family: Pinheirodontidae
Genus: Lavocatia
Species: L. alfambrensis
Binomial name
Lavocatia alfambrensis
Canudo J.I. and Cuenca G., 1996

Lavocatia is a genus of extinct mammal from the Lower Cretaceous of Spain. It was a member of the also extinct order Multituberculata, and lived alongside of dinosaurs. Like most Mesozoic mammals, it was a shrewish-sized animal. It's in the suborder "Plagiaulacida" and family Pinheirodontidae. The genus Lavocatia was named by J. I. Canudo and G. Cuenca in 1996 based on a single tooth, with the generic epithet in honor of French paleontologist René Lavocat and the specific epithet a reference to the town of Alfambra.

The species Lavocatia alfambrensis is known from the Barremian (Lower Cretaceous)-age strata of Galve, Spain. This genus is apparently differentiated by the number of cusps on the tooth; 15. Also referred to in the reference is Peramura. This was a more "advanced" group of mammals, possibly ancestral to ourselves (see Peramus).

References

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