multituberculate, n. and a. Palæont.
(ˌmʌltɪtjuːˈbɜːkjʊlət)
[ad. mod.L. name of order Multituberculata (E. D. Cope 1884, in Amer. Naturalist XVIII. 687), f. multi- + tuberculate a.]
A small fossil mammal of the order Multituberculata, characterized by teeth bearing many cusps arranged in two or three rows. Also as adj., pertaining to or resembling an animal of this type.
| 1884 E. D. Cope in Amer. Naturalist XVIII. 687 The extinct marsupials belong to three types, as distinguished by the form of their superior molar teeth. These are trituberculate, quadrituberculate, or multituberculate. 1888 Q. Jrnl. Microsc. Sci. XXIX. 20 The multituberculate molar teeth of Myrmecobius. 1898 A. S. Woodward Outl. Vertebr. Palæont. 248 There is also some reason to suspect that other double-rooted multituberculate teeth from the Rhætic of Europe, commonly claimed as mammalian, may be similarly interpreted [as reptilian]. 1926 Amer. Jrnl. Sci. CCXI. 228 (title) The Multituberculates as living animals. 1933 A. S. Romer Vertebr. Paleont. xiii. 257 The multituberculates had the longest history of any known mammalian order, for they appeared in the Triassic as the oldest known forms of mammals and persisted through into the Lower Eocene. 1969 Sci. Jrnl. 38/2 Entire skulls, including the basicranial region, of multituberculates have so far been found only in the Palaeocene genus Ptilodus, known from North America. |