Tikitherium

Tikitherium is an extinct genus of mammaliaforms from India, known from a single upper tooth. Originally argued to be a primitive mammaliaform from the Late Triassic, a 2024 study argued that it actually represented the remains of a shrew from the Neogene. Tikitherium refers to Tiki, the village located near the Tiki Formation where the specimen was originally thought to have come from, and therium is Greek for “Beast”. The species was named copei in honor of Edward Drinker Cope for his pioneering discoveries towards understanding mammalian molars.

== History and discovery == Tikitherium copei was first described by Datta in 2005. The first and only specimen is an upper tooth that was thought to have discovered in the lower part of the Late Triassic Tiki Formation, located in the South Rewa Gondwana Basin, India. Both the genus Tikitherium and the species copei were named by Datta in 2005. The currently only known specimen was deposited in the Paleontology Division of the Geological Survey of India, Calcutta. Although only a single tooth was found, it showed several derived features that are similar to other early mammalian dentitions, but further detailed comparisons showed the various differences that allowed this tooth to specifically stand out on its own.