Klamelia
Klamelia, named after the district in which it was found, is an extinct Eutriconodontid of the family Klameliidae. It inhabited northwestern China during the Late Jurassic. Klamelia was discovered in 1984 and is known from highly fragmentary remains, with only a dentary and some of its associated teeth being found. There is only one accepted species of Klamelia, K. zhaopengi, which is named after Zhao Xijin and Peng Xiling, paleontologists who collected the holotype specimen.
Discovery
The remains of Klamelia were discovered by Zhao Xijin in 1980. It was found in basal section of the Shishugou Group in Xinjiang province of China. Chow and Rich described Klamelia in 1984. The type specimen, IVPP V6447, is the property of the Institute of [Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology] in Beijing. Despite another attempt to find fossils in the area in 2003, no more remains of Klamelia have been discovered.Classification
When Chow and Rich described Klamelia, they determined it to be closely related to Gobiconodon due to various synapomorphies, notably the shortening of the mandible and reduction of pre-molar teeth to six or less. Thus, they created the new subfamily Gobiconodontidae to include Gobiconodon, Guchinodon, and Klamelia. Jenkins and Schaff subsequently changed Gobiconodontidae from subfamily to family status, but excluded Klamelia from the family in their description of Gobiconodon ostromi. Rougier et al. found that Klamelia was a mammaliaform of uncertain position after discovering Gobiconodon hopsoni. Klamelia was found to be a mammaliaform, however, primarily because of the reassessment of Gobiconodontidae as mammaliaformes. They also noted that the foreshortening of the mandible noted by Chow and Rich to be an indicator of derived features could be incorrect if the last premolar was, as they determined it, a double rooted canine. In 2004, Kielan Jaworowska et al. corroborated the findings of Jenkins and Schaff, finding Klamelia to be a basal Eutriconodontid. In 2006, the newly discovered Ferganodon was found to be the closest relative of Klamelia due to multiple similarities in tooth topography. Thus, Klameliidae was created to contain Klamelia and the newly-found Ferganodon. The same study found that Klameliidae was most closely related to Gobiconodontidae.Phylogeny
When Klamelia was described, Chow and Rich created the subfamily Gobiconodontidae. They found Klamelia to be the most derived member due to the shortening of the jaw, but they also found it to be the youngest member of Gobiconodontidae. Chow and Rich found Gobiconodontidae to be a basal clade within Triconodonta, and was subsequently placed within Amphilestidae.Below is the cladogram created from the results of Chow and Rich, 1984.
After the description of Ferganodon in 2006 by Martin and Averianov, 2006, the position of Klamelia was reassessed. Due to Ferganodon and Klamelia have many synapomorphies in their teeth, most notably the teeth being shaped roughly as a parallelogram, Ferganodon was placed as the closest ancestor to Klamelia, and the new family Klameliidae was erected. The study which described Ferganodon found that it contained more plesiomorphies than Klamelia and consequently placed it as the more basal member of Klameliidae. Klameliidae is most closely related to the Gobiconodonts.
Below is the cladogram based off the findings of Martin and Averianov, 2006.