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Description
Gobiconodon ostromi
Mammals during the Mesozoic largely lived in the shadow of their dinosaurian overlords. Throughout the reign of the dinosaurs, most mammals on average, were no larger than a rat or a rabbit, and largely filled niches similar to what rodents fill today. However, there were a handful of mammals that bucked that trend filling more unique roles in their respective ecosystems. One of the most famous was an animal called Gobiconodon.

Discovery, Species, and Naming:

The discovery of the type species of Gobiconodon is not well documented as it was discovered initially in the USSR and not much documentation is available. All that is known is that the type species was discovered by Boris Trofimov in Mongolia in 1978. Trofimov named the species Gobiconodon borissiaki, the generic name likely as a reference to the region it was discovered in, the Gobi Desert and the species name probably named after himself. Fossils of this animal have been found across the globe, as of 2022, 11 species (including 3 undescribed species, 2 from Russia and 1 from Mongolia) have been described primarily found in Asia, most of them fragmentary specimens including pieces of bone, teeth and jaw fragments.

However, in 1988, 2 relatively complete specimens were uncovered in the Cloverly Formation of Montana dated around 115-110,000,000 years ago. Described by Harvard Professor Farish A. Jenkins, Jr. and his colleague Dr. Charles R. Schaff these two skeletons offer the best look at this animal. The two Harvard Professors named it Gobiconodon ostromi after eminent Yale Paleontologist, John Ostrom. The specimens consisted of two fragmentary skulls, vertebral fragments, and the limbs of the animal. It is this animal that this profile is focused on.

Evolution and Taxonomy:

Gobiconodon is a member of the order eutriconodonta. Eutriconodonts are a distinctive group of Mesozoic mammals that died out prior to the KT Event. While it’s true that many descendants of modern mammals were around at this time in the Cretaceous. The three groups of modern mammals, placentals, marsupials and monotremes, also known as the crown mammals, diverged from each other around 200,000,000 years ago. However, some mammals predate this evolutionary divergence, and some diverged after this.
Eutriconodonts were distinct in that they broke off from the lineage that would become marsupials and placental mammals during the Jurassic Period. Taxonomically speaking, you are more closely related to this mammal than to an echidna.
This group of mammals was diverse and very successful during the Mesozoic. Prevalent across the globe from North and South America, Asia, and Europe. Ranging from around the size of a mouse to the size of a wolverine. Gobiconodon was among the largest and most successful of all the genera, as well as its cousin Repenomamus in early Cretaceous China.

Description:

Gobiconodon ostromi was around the size of an opossum or small badger and likely filled a similar niche to the aforementioned mammals. Roughly 1-2ft long and weighing about 8-12lbs. Because of its taxonomic position it shared both derived and basal traits. Among which include epipubic bones which are possessed by Marsupials. Meaning they probably had a pouch instead of having live young or laying eggs for reproductive means.
It also had a more sprawled posture compared to modern mammals, thus, it probably walked liked an echidna in life.
Furthermore, there may be some evidence of toxic spurs on the animal, meaning it could have been venomous. A very useful defense given the environment it resided in.
The skull was robust and had teeth reminiscent of modern carnivorous mammals, albeit modified slightly in shape. This has implications for what this animal’s behavior was like.

Behavior:

It’s likely this animal hunted vertebrate prey in its environment. Small lizards, other mammals, and maybe even dinosaurs. This idea of a mammal hunting dinosaurs may seem farfetched, however, it’s not as crazy as it seems.

One specimen of Gobiconodon’s cousin, Repenomamus had the remains of a juvenile dinosaur in its stomach. While unclear if it hunted this dinosaur or simply scavenged from the remains, it’s possible that it still could have hunted juvenile dinosaurs. This animal weighed roughly the same weight as opossums and easily could have been fast and powerful enough to sneak into nests and take an egg or juvenile dinosaurs.

Habitat and Competition:

The habitat it resided in was the Cloverly Formation 115,000,000 years ago. The environment was reminiscent of other fossil sites across America, consisting of a floodplain with some regions of woodland. Conifer forests, fern prairies and wetlands would have dominated the landscape. Furthermore, at this time flowers had just evolved in the early Cretaceous so they would have peppered the environment in the Cloverly.

Residing alongside animals like the iconic raptor Deinonychus and the giant allosaur, Acrocanthosaurus. Deinonychus was the most common predator in the region and likely came across Gobiconodon on occasion, as to what their dynamic was like is up for interpretation, it could have been reminiscent of animals like wolverines and wolves. Its build being similar to modern mustelids, it’s not hard to imagine a Deinonychus coming across this small, feisty mammal and being intimidated away. However, as stated, it’s completely up to speculation.
Moreover, even larger animals like the sauropod Sauroposeidon walked the land as well. The small orodromine Zephyrosaurus and even smaller ceratopsian, Aquilops also lived with this mammal. As previously mentioned, the juveniles of these dinosaurs could have been easy pickings for this unique mammal.

Extinction:

The extinction of Gobiconodon is probably down to climatic changes in the early Cretaceous. Furthermore, none of the eutriconodonts would persist past 70,000,000 years. The youngest (described species) species is Alticonodon which died out approximately 85,000,000 years ago. The general idea is that a more derived group of carnivorous mammals, the basal marsupials known deltatheroids. These creatures largely took over the niche and would persist slightly past the KT Event around 58,000,000 years ago.

Nonetheless, Gobiconodon goes against the idea that carnivorous dinosaurs were the sole occupiers of all predatory niches on land. In a world of reptiles, a handful of mammals were able to find a niche and may have even hunted their reptilian rulers.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

One of the most unique animals I’ve made so far.

Moth Light Media’s film on Repenomamus was very helpful in putting this together.

If you’re curious, yes, this will be in PMP, just finished putting the finishing touches on the outline for the scene it’s in.

If you can’t tell by this pic, it’s basically the honey badger of the Cloverly Formation. Of course, this is completely speculative behavior, but, not out of the realm of possibility. The honey badger while nearly double the weight of Gobiconodon and fends off animals like the lion which can be more than double the size of Deinonychus.

In terms of its appearance and base model, it’s largely a modified version of the St.Balthan’s mammal which its model best resembles Gobiconodon. As far as modifications I made, I tweaked the tail, made some edits to the rig, re-meshed parts of the feet, and skull.

For Past Meets Present:
Past Meets Present (Pt4 is Up) - Page 2 - The ZT2 Round Table

Model and Skin by Whalebite and Tamara Henson, modified by me:
Saint Bathans Mammal (Tamara Henson) | ZT2 Download Library Wiki | Fandom

Description
Gobiconodon ostromi
Mammals during the Mesozoic largely lived in the shadow of their dinosaurian overlords. Throughout the reign of the dinosaurs, most mammals on average, were no larger than a rat or a rabbit, and largely filled niches similar to what rodents fill today. However, there were a handful of mammals that bucked that trend filling more unique roles in their respective ecosystems. One of the most famous was an animal called Gobiconodon.

Discovery, Species, and Naming:

The discovery of the type species of Gobiconodon is not well documented as it was discovered initially in the USSR and not much documentation is available. All that is known is that the type species was discovered by Boris Trofimov in Mongolia in 1978. Trofimov named the species Gobiconodon borissiaki, the generic name likely as a reference to the region it was discovered in, the Gobi Desert and the species name probably named after himself. Fossils of this animal have been found across the globe, as of 2022, 11 species (including 3 undescribed species, 2 from Russia and 1 from Mongolia) have been described primarily found in Asia, most of them fragmentary specimens including pieces of bone, teeth and jaw fragments.

However, in 1988, 2 relatively complete specimens were uncovered in the Cloverly Formation of Montana dated around 115-110,000,000 years ago. Described by Harvard Professor Farish A. Jenkins, Jr. and his colleague Dr. Charles R. Schaff these two skeletons offer the best look at this animal. The two Harvard Professors named it Gobiconodon ostromi after eminent Yale Paleontologist, John Ostrom. The specimens consisted of two fragmentary skulls, vertebral fragments, and the limbs of the animal. It is this animal that this profile is focused on.

Evolution and Taxonomy:

Gobiconodon is a member of the order eutriconodonta. Eutriconodonts are a distinctive group of Mesozoic mammals that died out prior to the KT Event. While it’s true that many descendants of modern mammals were around at this time in the Cretaceous. The three groups of modern mammals, placentals, marsupials and monotremes, also known as the crown mammals, diverged from each other around 200,000,000 years ago. However, some mammals predate this evolutionary divergence, and some diverged after this.
Eutriconodonts were distinct in that they broke off from the lineage that would become marsupials and placental mammals during the Jurassic Period. Taxonomically speaking, you are more closely related to this mammal than to an echidna.
This group of mammals was diverse and very successful during the Mesozoic. Prevalent across the globe from North and South America, Asia, and Europe. Ranging from around the size of a mouse to the size of a wolverine. Gobiconodon was among the largest and most successful of all the genera, as well as its cousin Repenomamus in early Cretaceous China.

Description:

Gobiconodon ostromi was around the size of an opossum or small badger and likely filled a similar niche to the aforementioned mammals. Roughly 1-2ft long and weighing about 8-12lbs. Because of its taxonomic position it shared both derived and basal traits. Among which include epipubic bones which are possessed by Marsupials. Meaning they probably had a pouch instead of having live young or laying eggs for reproductive means.
It also had a more sprawled posture compared to modern mammals, thus, it probably walked liked an echidna in life.
Furthermore, there may be some evidence of toxic spurs on the animal, meaning it could have been venomous. A very useful defense given the environment it resided in.
The skull was robust and had teeth reminiscent of modern carnivorous mammals, albeit modified slightly in shape. This has implications for what this animal’s behavior was like.

Behavior:

It’s likely this animal hunted vertebrate prey in its environment. Small lizards, other mammals, and maybe even dinosaurs. This idea of a mammal hunting dinosaurs may seem farfetched, however, it’s not as crazy as it seems.

One specimen of Gobiconodon’s cousin, Repenomamus had the remains of a juvenile dinosaur in its stomach. While unclear if it hunted this dinosaur or simply scavenged from the remains, it’s possible that it still could have hunted juvenile dinosaurs. This animal weighed roughly the same weight as opossums and easily could have been fast and powerful enough to sneak into nests and take an egg or juvenile dinosaurs.

Habitat and Competition:

The habitat it resided in was the Cloverly Formation 115,000,000 years ago. The environment was reminiscent of other fossil sites across America, consisting of a floodplain with some regions of woodland. Conifer forests, fern prairies and wetlands would have dominated the landscape. Furthermore, at this time flowers had just evolved in the early Cretaceous so they would have peppered the environment in the Cloverly.

Residing alongside animals like the iconic raptor Deinonychus and the giant allosaur, Acrocanthosaurus. Deinonychus was the most common predator in the region and likely came across Gobiconodon on occasion, as to what their dynamic was like is up for interpretation, it could have been reminiscent of animals like wolverines and wolves. Its build being similar to modern mustelids, it’s not hard to imagine a Deinonychus coming across this small, feisty mammal and being intimidated away. However, as stated, it’s completely up to speculation.
Moreover, even larger animals like the sauropod Sauroposeidon walked the land as well. The small orodromine Zephyrosaurus and even smaller ceratopsian, Aquilops also lived with this mammal. As previously mentioned, the juveniles of these dinosaurs could have been easy pickings for this unique mammal.

Extinction:

The extinction of Gobiconodon is probably down to climatic changes in the early Cretaceous. Furthermore, none of the eutriconodonts would persist past 70,000,000 years. The youngest (described species) species is Alticonodon which died out approximately 85,000,000 years ago. The general idea is that a more derived group of carnivorous mammals, the basal marsupials known deltatheroids. These creatures largely took over the niche and would persist slightly past the KT Event around 58,000,000 years ago.

Nonetheless, Gobiconodon goes against the idea that carnivorous dinosaurs were the sole occupiers of all predatory niches on land. In a world of reptiles, a handful of mammals were able to find a niche and may have even hunted their reptilian rulers.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

One of the most unique animals I’ve made so far.

Moth Light Media’s film on Repenomamus was very helpful in putting this together.

If you’re curious, yes, this will be in PMP, just finished putting the finishing touches on the outline for the scene it’s in.

If you can’t tell by this pic, it’s basically the honey badger of the Cloverly Formation. Of course, this is completely speculative behavior, but, not out of the realm of possibility. The honey badger while nearly double the weight of Gobiconodon and fends off animals like the lion which can be more than double the size of Deinonychus.

In terms of its appearance and base model, it’s largely a modified version of the St.Balthan’s mammal which its model best resembles Gobiconodon. As far as modifications I made, I tweaked the tail, made some edits to the rig, re-meshed parts of the feet, and skull.

For Past Meets Present:
Past Meets Present (Pt4 is Up) - Page 2 - The ZT2 Round Table

Model and Skin by Whalebite and Tamara Henson, modified by me:
Saint Bathans Mammal (Tamara Henson) | ZT2 Download Library Wiki | Fandom