a series of characteristic evolutionary traits, common to all of them, which separate them from the lagerstätte of Quercy. This table compares the size of different specimens of each species found in the Messel pit (sizes in millimetres). † From the front edge of the orbit. †† Above the incisura praeangularis. Evolutionary tendencies In his work Quelques insectivores primitifs nouveaux de l'Eocène supérieur du sud de la France (1989), French paleontologist Christian Mathis studied the evolutionary tendencies of the genus Leptictidium, based on comparison of the most primitive and the most recent species. From his observations, Mathis remarks: an increase in size; a precocious merging of the hypoconulid and the entoconid on M3; a slight reduction of the width of the talonid on M3 in comparison to the anterior molars; the formation and development of a mesostile on the molariform jugal teeth P4-M3; the reduction of the parametastylar and metastylar regions of these same teeth (with some exceptions), in particular with a reduction of the parastylar lobe which rises less in the anterior part of M3 and possibly P4; a transverse shortening of the upper molarised teeth, which become more square; the development of accessory conuli on the preprotocrista and postprotocrista; the development of the postcingulum. Bibliography In English In French In German References Leptictids Eocene mammals Eocene mammals of Europe Priabonian genus extinctions Ypresian genus first appearances Fossil taxa described in 1962 Fossils of Germany Prehistoric mammal genera