Prepotherium

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Prepotherium
Temporal range: Early-Mid Miocene (Santacrucian-Mayoan)
~17.5–11.6 Ma
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Chordata
Class:
Mammalia
Superorder:
Xenarthra
Order:
Pilosa
Family:
†Megatheriidae
Subfamily:
†
Tribe:
†
Subtribe:
†
Genus:
Prepotherium

Ameghino, 1891
Species
  • P. filholi
  • P. moyani
  • P. potens Ameghino 1891

Prepotherium is an extinct genus of ground sloths that lived during the Miocene period. Fossils of Prepotherium have been found in the Collón Curá and of Argentina.[1]

Prepotherium differed from Megatherium by being smaller and having a less exaggeratedly convex inferior border of the lower jaw.[2]

Redefined species[]

An additional species from Venezuela, P. venezuelanum, was named by R. Collins in 1935.[3] from fossils found in the Portuguesa state and additional remains from the Acre state in Brazil.[4] However, this species was later reclassified in its own genus, , as a basal member of another family of ground sloths, the Mylodontidae.[5][6]

References[]

  1. ^ Prepotherium at Fossilworks.org
  2. ^ A History of Land Mammals in the Western Hemisphere, by William Berryman Scott
  3. ^ Collins, R.L., 1934. Venezuelan Tertiary Mammals. Johns Hopkins University Studies in Geology (11), 23-244.
  4. ^ M. A. Cozzuol. 2006. The Acre vertebrate fauna: Age, diversity, and geography. Journal of South American Earth Sciences 21:185-203
  5. ^ Hirschfeld SE. 1985. Ground sloths from the Friasian La Venta Fauna, with additions to the pre-Friasian Coyaima Fauna of Colombia, South America. University of California Publications, Geological Sciences 128: 1–91.
  6. ^ Marcelo R. Sánchez-Villagra, Orangel A. Aguilera, Alfredo A. Carlini. The fossil vertebrate record of Venezuela. In Marcelo R. Sánchez-Villagra, Orangel A. Aguilera, and Alfredo A. Carlini, Urumaco and Venezuelan Paleontology The Fossil Record of the Northern Neotropics. 2010 Publisher: Indiana University Press, p. 26

External links[]

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