Chapalmalania

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Chapalmalania
Temporal range: Pliocene (Chapadmalalan-Uquian)
~3.6–3.0 Ma
↓
Chapalmalania.jpg
Scientific classification e
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Family: Procyonidae
Genus: †Chapalmalania
Ameghino, 1908
Species
  • C. altaefrontis
  • C. orthognatha

Chapalmalania is an extinct genus of procyonid from the Pliocene (Chapadmalalan to Uquian) of Argentina and Colombia (Ware Formation, Cocinetas Basin, La Guajira).[1][2]

Description[]

Though related to raccoons and coatis, Chapalmalania was a large creature, reaching about 1.5 metres (4.9 ft) in body length, with a short tail. Chapalmalania is estimated to have weighed approximately 150 kilograms (330 lb), comparable in size to an American black bear (Ursus americanus).[3] Due to its size, its remains were initially identified as those of a bear. It evolved from the "dog-coati" Cyonasua, which probably island-hopped from Central America during the late Miocene (7.5 million years ago), as perhaps the earliest southward mammalian migrants of the Great American Interchange. When the Isthmus of Panama rose from the sea to allow further invasions by other North American species, Chapalmalania was unable to compete and its lineage became extinct.[4]

Chapalmalania is thought to have had an omnivorous diet similar to modern bears based on dental morphology.[5][6] Bite marks attributable to Chapalmalania have been found on a glyptodont carcass and have been interpreted as scavenging behavior, suggesting that Chapalmalania also fed on carrion of large mammals on at least some occasions.[7]

References[]

  1. ^ Forasiepi, Analia M.; Soibelzon, Leopoldo H.; Gomez, Catalina Suarez; Sánchez, Rodolfo; Quiroz, Luis I.; Jaramillo, Carlos; Sánchez-Villagra, Marcelo R. (17 September 2014). "Carnivorans at the Great American Biotic Interchange: new discoveries from the northern neotropics" (PDF). Naturwissenschaften. 101 (11): 965–974. doi:10.1007/s00114-014-1237-4. PMID 25228347. S2CID 14870844.
  2. ^ Chapalmalania at Fossilworks.org
  3. ^ Forasiepi, Analía M.; Prevosti, Francisco J. (2018). Evolution of South American mammalian predators during the Cenozoic : paleobiogeographic and paleoenvironmental contingencies. Cham: Springer. pp. 124–125. ISBN 978-3-319-03701-1.
  4. ^ Palmer, D., ed. (1999). The Marshall Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Animals. London: Marshall Editions. p. 215. ISBN 1-84028-152-9.
  5. ^ Engelman, Russell K.; Croft, Darin A. (12 September 2019). "Strangers in a strange land: Ecological dissimilarity to metatherian carnivores may partly explain early colonization of South America by Cyonasua-group procyonids". Paleobiology. 45 (4): 598–611. doi:10.1017/pab.2019.29.
  6. ^ Kraglievich, J.L.; de Olazabal, A.G. "Los prociónidos extinguidos del género Chapalmalania Amegh". Revista del Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales, Ciencias Zoologícas. 6: 1–59.
  7. ^ de los Reyes, Martín; Poiré, Daniel; Soibelzon, Leopoldo; Zurita, Alfredo E.; Arrouy, M.J. (2013). "First evidence of scavenging of a Glyptodont (Mammalia, Glyptodontidae) from the Pliocene of the Pampean region (Argentina): taphonomic and paleoecological remarks". Palaeontologia Electronica. 16 (2, 15A): 1–13. doi:10.26879/331.

Further reading[]

  • Barry Cox, Colin Harrison, R.J.G. Savage, and Brian Gardiner. (1999): The Simon & Schuster Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Creatures: A Visual Who's Who of Prehistoric Life. Simon & Schuster.
  • David Norman. (2001): The Big Book Of Dinosaurs. page 13, Walcome books.

External links[]


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