page_title: Gondwanatheria
section_title: Classification
hierarchical_section_title: Gondwanatheria / Classification
caption_attribution_description: English: Life reconstruction of Vintana sertichi. Postcranial reconstruction is hypothetical.
context_page_description: Gondwanatheria is an extinct group of Mammaliaformes that lived in the Southern Hemisphere, including Antarctica, during the Upper Cretaceous through the Miocene. Until recently, they were known only from isolated teeth, a few lower jaws, two partial skulls and one complete cranium. Because of this fragmentary knowledge, their placement is not clear.
context_section_description: For several decades the affinities of the group were not clear, being first interpreted as early xenarthrans, or "toothless" mammals similar to the modern anteater. A variety of studies have placed them as allotheres related to multituberculates, possibly even true multituberculates, closer to cimolodonts than "plagiaulacidans" are. However, a more recent study recovered them as nested among haramiyidans, rendering them as non-mammalian cynodonts. A more recently described specimen has since recovered them as allotheres closely related to multituberculates, but this was soon after followed by a study recovering them as part of Euharamiyida, remaining inconclusive to whether they belong in crown-group Mammalia.
  There are three known families within Gondwanatheria. The family Sudamericidae was named by Scillato-Yané and Pascual in 1984, and includes the vast majority of named taxa. The family Ferugliotheriidae was named by José Bonaparte in 1986, and includes one genus, Ferugliotherium, and possibly a few other forms like Trapalcotherium. Groeberiidae, originally interpreted as paucituberculate marsupials, has since been understood as gondwanatherians, though only the type genus, Groeberia, has been examined as such.
  Further fossils have come from India, Madagascar and Antarctica. A possible Ferugliotherium-like species occurs in Maastrichtian deposits of Mexico, extending the clade to North America.
  The Miocene (Colhuehuapian) genus Patagonia is the youngest known representative.
caption: Life reconstruction of Vintana sertichi. Postcranial reconstruction is hypothetical.
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