Proterotheriidae

Proterotheriidae
	Thoatherium
Temporal occurrence
	Upper Paleocene to Upper Pleistocene
Locations
	Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay, Colombia
Systematics
	Higher mammals (Eutheria)
	Laurasiatheria
	South American ungulates (Meridiungulata)
	Litopterna
	Proterotherioidea
	Proterotheriidae
Scientific name
	Proterotheriidae
	Ameghino , 1887

The Proterotheriidae ( Gr .: próteros = vorderer ; theríon = mammal) are an extinct family of mammals that lived in South America during the Cenozoic and whose last representatives only died out at the end of the Pleistocene . The morphological features of the animals were reminiscent of horses, although they were not closely related to them and instead belonged to the order of the Litopterna .

Thoatherium

Features and distribution

The Proterotheriidae can be divided into two subfamilies and 18 genera. All were small or medium in size. Characteristic for this family is a strong reduction in the number of toes, which is reminiscent of the monodactyl family of horses. However, the animals were not related to the horses and thus provide an impressive example of convergent evolution . The teeth were brachyodont or mesodont . The family has been recorded since the Upper Paleocene. Their remains are known from Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay and Colombia. At the end of the Miocene, their abundance of forms decreased and it was long believed that the animals became extinct in the late Pliocene . However, recent finds show that the animals survived until the late Pleistocene. This last species of Proterotheriidae was Neolicaphrium recens from the Lujanian (late Pleistocene to early Holocene) and the Ensenadan (early to middle Pleistocene) of Argentina and Uruguay. Fossils of the family that are not precisely identified are also known from the Lujanian of Brazil.

Genera

Some genera of the family:

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b C.S. Scherer, VG Pitana and AM Ribeiro: Proterotheriidae and Macraucheniidae (Litopterna, Mammalia) from the pleistocene of Rio Grande do sul State, Brazil. Revista Brasileira de Paleontologia 12 (3) (2009), pp. 231–246 10.4072 / rbp.2009.3.06. PDF

Web links

Commons : Proterotheriidae - Collection of images, videos, and audio files

[Scherer_et_al.,_2009-1] C.S. Scherer, VG Pitana and AM Ribeiro: Proterotheriidae and Macraucheniidae (Litopterna, Mammalia) from the pleistocene of Rio Grande do sul State, Brazil. Revista Brasileira de Paleontologia 12 (3) (2009), pp. 231–246 10.4072 / rbp.2009.3.06. PDF