The Saint Bathans mammal is a currently unnamed extinct mammal from the Miocene of New Zealand. A notable member of the Saint Bathans Fauna, it is notable for being a late surviving "archaic" mammal species, neither a placental or marsupial, as well as for providing evidence that terrestrial mammals did in fact once live in Zealandia, in contrast with modern New Zealand, where bats are the only mammals in otherwise bird-dominated terrestrial faunas.DiscoveryThe Saint Bathans mammal is currently represented by two specimens, MNZ S.40958 and MNZ S.42214, composed of a lower jaw fragment and a femur respectively. It was part of an assemblage of fossils recovered in Saint Bathans in 1978, in what would later be understood to be the Bannockburn Formation, and first described in 2006.DescriptionLike most small mammal fossils, the Saint Bathans mammal material is rather incomplete, with only a lower jaw fragment and femur being known.The lower jaw is toothless, though the presence of deep tooth sockets suggests that it was toothed in life and that the teeth were lost post-mortem. It bears a long fused mandibular symphysis, an evidently procumbent lower incisor, and five additional sockets that imply a dental formula of one incisor, one canine and two double-rooted premolars.
Saint Bathans, New Zealand
27 meter
The former gold and coal mining town of Saint Bathans, formerly named Dunstan Creek, ...to add Saint Bathans mammal map to your website;
