Bardalestes, Goin & Candela & Abello & Oliveira, 2009

Goin, Francisco J., Candela, Adriana M., Abello, M. Alejandra & Oliveira, Edison V., 2009, Earliest South American paucituberculatans and their significance in the understanding of ‘ pseudodiprotodont’ marsupial radiations, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 155 (4), pp. 867-884 : 870-871

PLESION BARDALESTES GEN. NOV.

Diagnosis: Differs from all other paucituberculatans in that the upper molars lack an enlarged, ‘hypoconelike’, metaconule; the paracone is less reduced; the paracone and the metacone are less twinned to StB and StC + StD, respectively; StB much larger than StC + StD; distal end of entocristid in m1–3 relatively high.

Etymology: Barda, from La Barda locality, where the type specimen of the type species of the genus was collected; - lestes, Latin for ‘thief’, ‘pirate’ and, by extension, ‘carnivorous’ (lestikos), a term that characterizes the generic name of several fossil and living Paucituberculata .

Type species: Bardalestes hunco sp. nov.

Distribution: Late Palaeocene and Early–Middle Eocene, South America.