The Prehistoric Park Animal Field Guide Volume 1

by WildExpert24

As a Prehistoric Park employee, you get the privilege to work with the likes of previously extinct animals. However, if you want to survive longer than five minutes, then you need to have knowledge of its inhabitants. From the world of Cartoon's Prehistoric Park, this Guide will give you info on behavior, diet, lifespan, and more. Welcome to the Ultimate Prehistoric Guidebook.

51. Cimolestes

Cimolestes

Scientific Classification

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Mammalia

Order: Cimolesta

Family: Cimolestidae

Genus: Cimolestes

Type Species: Cimolestes incisus meaning "Chalk incisor robber."

Described by Othniel Charles Marsh,

Common Name: Hell Creek False Mouse.

Synonym:

-Nyssodon, Simpson, 1927

Current Park Population: (17; all adults; 7 male, 10 female)

Park Diet: Crickets, mealworms, thawed mice, and cut-up meat pellets.

Natural Diet: Insects and small animals.

Lifespan: 3 years

Habitat: Open-Canopy Forests and Swamps.

Native Ecosystem: Western North America, on what was then an island continent known as Laramidia. Hell Creek Formation, Foremost Formation, Oldman Formation, St. Mary River Formation, Ravenscrag Formation, Frenchman Formation, Judith River Formation, Kirtland Formation, Lance Formation, Hainin Formation, Santa Lucía Formation (Tiupampan), Jbel Guersif Formation, Bear Formations, Ferris Formation, Fossil Butte Member, and Green River Formation, Belgium, Europe, Bolivia, South America, Morocco, North Africa, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico, USA, and Alberta, Saskatchewan, Canada, Late Cretaceous, 75-56 Million Years Ago, Late Campanian-Latest Thanetian Stages.

Breeding Season: March-November.

Gestation Period: Three to Four Weeks.

Litter Born: 12 pups.

Danger Level: 2 out of 10.

Park Star Rating: 1 Star.

Summary: Mammals occupy small animal roles during the age of dinosaurs which is why you don't often see many small dinosaurs or pterosaurs from the fossil record as those niches have been taken. Cimolestes is a small mammal occupying the niche of tree-dwelling arboreal mammals living up in the trees looking at the dinosaurs down below where it's safe.

Description: Cimolestes was a small, agile, tree-dwelling predator with long toes for grasping branches and a prehensile tail at least twice the length of its body. It has the largest number of tail vertebrae known in any mammal.

Individuals have a brown back grading to a light brown, with white spots, a blueish purple tail ending with a black tip, black markings around the eyes, pale snout, and feet with white claws.

Classification: Paleontologists have disagreed on its relationship to other mammals, in part because quite different animals were assigned to the genus, making Cimolestes a grade taxon of animals with similar features rather than a genus of closely related ones.

The genus was once considered to be marsupials; later it was reclassified with the placental mammals, as ancestors of the Carnivora and the extinct Creodonta. Recent researchers have agreed the species assigned to Cimolestes are primitive eutherian mammals, members of a Cimolestid clade (an order or family named after the genus), part of the larger clade Didelphodonta (a superorder or order, not to be confused with the marsupial clade Didelphimorphia). Didelphodonts have been placed within the Ferae, as a sister group to Carnivora. However, consensus is emerging that modern placental mammals evolved later than previously thought, that other types of mammals had long, diversified, and successful histories, and that Cimolestes and many related genera are stem eutherians, more closely related to placentals than to marsupials but outside of placental mammals proper, and not closely related to any living animal.

Cimolestes in particular follows as the direct outgroup to Taeniodonta, indicating that the latter evolved from forms similar to it.

Fossil Distribution: Fossils have been found in North America, South America, Europe, and Africa. Cimolestes first appeared during the Late Cretaceous of North America.

Most species have been described from teeth and isolated fragments. One complete articulated skeleton provisionally assigned to Cimolestes has been found.

To make the genus reflect an actual group of most closely related species, three nominal species of Cimolestes, C. magnus, C. cerberoides, and C. propalaeoryctes, have been reassigned to their own genera, Altacreodus, Ambilestes, and Scollardius, respectively. Cimolestes incisus Marsh and Cimolestes stirtoni Clemens remain within the genus.

Paleobiology

Dentition and Diet: Cimolestes have a full complement of teeth adapted for eating insects and other small animals.

Interactions with other species: The small animals do fall prey to young Tyrannosaurus, Acheroraptor, Dakotaraptor, Dromaeosaurus, Pectinodon, Quetzalcoatlus, Ornithomimus, Anzu, Leptoceratops, Thescelosaurus, Palaeosaniwa, and Dinilysia.

Extinction: According to some paleontologists, Cimolestes died out at the start of the Paleocene, while others report the genus from the early Eocene.

Danger Tip: Normally harmless and easy to handle, but can bite.

Significant Events: On the final day, the team encounters a group of Palaeosaniwa basking in the sun as they lounged upon a large rock, alongside Chamops scampering around in search of food like insects and plants three mammals, Cimolestes, Alphadon, and Meniscoessus, scattered throughout the clearing as they fought with each other for food, and a Slither of Dinilysia coiled up on top of a large log basking in the sun. They were scooped up in bags and taken to Prehistoric Park. They now live in the Hell Creek Building Mammal Pens.

Hell Creek Building Mammal Pens: There are Four other land paddocks near the back entrance of the building, with burrows and underground viewing, serving as home to Didelphodon, Alphadon, Cimolestes, and Meniscoessus. The Cimolestes is a cage covered with mesh alongside replica sections of large trees with branches resembling the canopy with controlled lighting to mimic day/night cycles. They have plenty of climbing enrichment.

Conclusion: Cimolestes are quite interesting to observe climbing up the trees and branches. You might wanna stop and see them climb about on your visit to Prehistoric Park.

The Field Guide might take a long time, like structuring and writing descriptions of the creatures, but also my time in college and spending time with my family. So you can suggest additional information quotes, descriptions, and natural or speculative behaviors for the prehistoric animals that I can edit and you send your suggestions either in reviews or Private Messages.

Examples: Inferring what the toons are doodling on the sketches or snarking quotes.

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