Helaletes

Helaletes; Temporal range: Early Eocene
	H. nanus skull
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Perissodactyla
Superfamily:	Tapiroidea
Family:	Helaletidae
Genus:	Helaletes
Species:	H. nanus
Binomial name
	Helaletes nanus; (Marsh, 1871)

Helaletes is an extinct perissodactyl closely related to tapirs. Fossils have been found in North America.

Taxonomy

The type species of Helaletes, H. nanus, is known from Bridgerian-age fossils in the western US.^[1] Desmatotherium mongoliensis was previously referred to Helaletes, but Bai et al. (2017) found it distantly related to the H. nanus type species, while excluding the nominal species H. medius Qiu, 1987 from Helaletidae.^[2]

References

^ http://fossilworks.org/bridge.pl?a=taxonInfo&taxon_no=46822
^ Bai B, Wang Y Q, Mao F Y et al., 2017. New material of Eocene Helaletidae (Perissodactyla, Tapiroidea) from the Irdin Manha Formation of the Erlian Basin, Inner Mongolia, China and comments on related localities of the Huheboerhe Area. Am Mus Novit, 3878: 1–44.

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[1] ttp://fossilworks.org/bridge.pl?a=taxonInfo&taxon_no=46822

[2] Bai B, Wang Y Q, Mao F Y et al., 2017. New material of Eocene Helaletidae (Perissodactyla, Tapiroidea) from the Irdin Manha Formation of the Erlian Basin, Inner Mongolia, China and comments on related localities of the Huheboerhe Area. Am Mus Novit, 3878: 1–44.

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