Raoellidae

Graphic representation of Indohyus

• Jammu and Kashmir (India)
• Northern Pakistan
• Burma?

The Raoellidae are an extinct group of animals that lived in the Middle Eocene to the Indian subcontinent. Fossils have been found in Jammu and Kashmir and northern Pakistan in the Kala Chitta - Mountains. The Indian subcontinent had no contact with Asia and was isolated at this time as an island continent in the Indian Ocean. A Fund unsafe assignment to the Raoellidae there are also from Burma.

The mammalian family was erected in 1981 by Sahni and Khare. Type is the genus Raoella, which is a synonym of Indohyus today. The genera identified in the Raoellidae listed previously to the Dichobundidae, the Helohyidae or incertae sedis were assigned to the pig -like ( Suiformes ). The family is documented mainly by tooth fossil finds.

System

In December 2007, Thewissen et al. in the journal Nature that an unusually complete skeleton of Indohyus cashmere suggesting that the Raoellidae were aquatic and as a sister group of whales ( Cetacea) must be considered. In particular, the morphology of the ears and premolars, the density of the bones and the isotopic composition of the teeth show a close relationship of Indohyus to the whales.

Genera

• Khirtharia Pilgrim, 1940
• Ranga Rao Indohyus, 1971
• Kunmunella, Sahni & Khare, 1971
• Metkatius, Kumar & Sahni, 1985

The genera can be grouped into two groups: Khirtharia and Metkatius were small and had bunodonte or slightly lophodonte teeth. Indohyus and Kunmunella were larger and had significantly lophodonte teeth.