Helaletes
Extinct genus of mammals
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Helaletes is a genus of an extinct perissodactyls closely related to tapirs. Fossils have been found in North America.
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| Helaletes Temporal range: | |
|---|---|
| |
| H. nanus skeleton | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Perissodactyla |
| Family: | †Helaletidae |
| Genus: | †Helaletes Marsh, 1872 |
| Species: | †H. nanus |
| Binomial name | |
| †Helaletes nanus Marsh, 1871 | |
Taxonomy
The type species of Helaletes, H. nanus, is known from Bridgerian-age fossils in the western US.[1] Desmatotherium mongoliensis was previously referred to Helaletes, but Bai et al. (2017) found it distantly related to the H. nanus type species, while excluding the nominal species H. medius Qiu, 1987 from Helaletidae.[2]
