Global InformationCatodontherium information
| Catodontherium Temporal range:
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| Catodontherium fallax jaw fragment, Natural History Museum of Basel | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Artiodactyla |
| Family: | †Anoplotheriidae |
| Subfamily: | †Dacrytheriinae |
| Genus: | †Catodontherium Depéret, 1908 |
| Type species | |
| †Catodus robiacensis (= †Catodontherium robiacense) Depéret, 1906
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| Other species | |
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| Synonyms | |
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Genus synonymy
Synonyms of C. robiacense
Synonyms of C. fallax
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Catodontherium is an extinct genus of Palaeogene artiodactyls belonging to the family Anoplotheriidae. It was endemic to Western Europe and had a temporal range exclusive to the middle Eocene, although its earliest appearance depends on whether C. argentonicum is truly a species of Catodontherium. It was first named Catodus by the French palaeontologist Charles Depéret in 1906, who created two species for the genus and later changed the genus name to Catodontherium in 1908. The Swiss palaeontologist Hans Georg Stehlin renamed one species and classified two other newly erected species to Catodontherium in 1910. Today, there are four known species, although two remain questionable in genus placement.
Similar to the other dacrytheriine Dacrytherium and unlike anoplotheriines such as Anoplotherium, Catodontherium had a preorbital fossa. It also had cranial and dental morphologies typical of the Dacrytheriinae but had specific differences from Dacrytherium such as the position of the infraorbital foramen and forms of the premolars and molars. The anoplotheriid is known by very few facial and limb remains, most of which are fragmentary.
Typical of anoplotheriids, Catodontherium lived in Western Europe back when it was an archipelago that was isolated from the rest of Eurasia, meaning that it lived in subtropical-tropical environments with various other faunal assembagess that also evolved with high levels of endemism.