Litovoi tholocephalos
Litovoi tholocephalos is a multituberculate mammal indigenous to Romania, then the Hațeg Island. A part of Kogaionidae, a lineage otherwise dominated by iron-enamelled insectivores, Litovoi appears to have had a similar lifestyle, having similar teeth. Different however is its cranial anatomy; this is the first recorded example of a Mesozoic island mammal have reduced its brain size in an insular environment, presumably due to the lack of predators or specialised niche it found itself in. It has one of the smallest brain-to-body ratios seen in derived mammals, although it retains enlarged olfactory bulbs and paraflocculi. Being relatively normal sized for a multituberculate, this showcases that brain reduction is not correlated to allometry.[1]
| Litovoi Temporal range: Late Cretaceous | |
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| Genus: | Litovoi |
| Species: | L. tholocephalos |
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| Litovoi tholocephalos Csiki-Sava et al., 2018 | |
References
- Zoltán Csiki-Sava; Mátyás Vremir; Jin Meng; Stephen L. Brusatte; Mark A. Norell (2018). "Dome-headed, small-brained island mammal from the Late Cretaceous of Romania". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. in press. doi:10.1073/pnas.1801143115.
