Naranius, Russell and Dashzeveg, 1986

Ting, Suyin, Wang, Xiaoming & Meng, Jin, 2023, Cranial And Postcranial Morphology Of The Insectivoran-Grade Mammals Hsiangolestes And Naranius (Mammalia, Eutheria) With Analyses Of Their Phylogenetic Relationships, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2023 (463), pp. 1-129 : 106

NARANIUs

Our cladistics supports the monophyletic clade of Cimolestidae , including Naranius and Cimolestes (fig. 56: node 56). Monophyly of the family Cimolestidae is well supported by five dental synapomorphies (chars. 43, 54, 99, 113, 125). In the majority rule tree, Cimolestes is sister to Naranius . The next node (fig. 56: node 65) that united two species of Naranius , N. infrequens and N. hengdongensis , is strongly supported by five dental synapomorphies (chars. 56, 97, 100, 101, 108). Presence of a rudimentary hypocone on the upper molars (char. 101) indicates the derived feature of Naranius compared to Cimolestes . N. infrequens has several autapomorphies: p4 talonid with one cusp (char. 68), centrocrista straight (char. 86), absence of notch on metacrista (char. 88). N. hengdongensis has three autapomorphies: m3 larger than m2 (char. 130), one mental foramen (char. 131), and broad coronoid process (char. 134). Naranius was previously considered an Asian endemic taxon, found in Mongolia and China. The only species assigned to Naranius outside Asia is N. americanus from the early Wasatchian, Red Hot local fauna, uppermost Tuscahoma Formation, Lauderdale County, Mississippi ( Beard and Dawson, 2009). This species is represented by two isolated teeth, left m3 and right m2. Based on Beard and Dawson (2009: 204–205), the similarities between N. infrequens and North American specimens are “relatively tall trigonids and long talonids of lower molars, the open lingual margins of the lower molars, and the relatively small size of the lower molar paraconids (which are nonetheless located fairly high on the trigonid, near the base of the corresponding metaconid.” These characters are plesiomorphic characters, common to the early eutherians and insectivorans. N. infrequens differs from N. americanus in having its paraconid relatively medially located, paraconid very low, crest connecting protoconid and paraconid less developed, cristid obliqua joining the postvallid in the middle instead of buccally in N. americanus , talonid not basined, and no crest connecting hypoconulid and entoconid instead of a crest between hypoconulid and entoconid in N. americanus . Affinities of N. americanus await analysis with better-preserved materials.