#litopterna

[alphynix]

Neolicaphrium recens here might look like some sort of early horse, but this little mammal was actually something else entirely.

Known from southern South America during the late Pleistocene to early Holocene, between about 1 million and 11,000 years ago, Neolicaphrium was the last known member of the proterotheriids, a group of South American native ungulates that were only very distantly related to horses, tapirs, and rhinos. Instead these animals evolved their remarkably horse-like body plan completely independently, adapting for high-speed running with a single weight-bearing hoof on each foot.

Neolicaphrium was a mid-sized proterotheriid, standing around 45cm tall at the shoulder (~1'6"), and unlike some of its more specialized relatives it still had two small vestigial toes on each foot along with its main hoof. Tooth microwear studies suggest it had a browsing diet, mainly feeding on soft leaves, stems, and buds in its savannah woodland habitat.

It was one of the few South American native ungulates to survive through the Great American Biotic Interchange, when the formation of the Isthmus of Panama allowed North and South American animals to disperse into each other's native ranges. While many of its relatives had already gone extinct in the wake of the massive ecological changes this caused, Neolicaphrium seems to have been enough of a generalist to hold on, living alongside a fairly modern-looking selection of northern immigrant mammals such as deer, peccaries, tapirs, foxes, jaguars… and also actual horses.

Some of the earliest human inhabitants of South America would have seen Neolicaphirum alive before its extinction. We don't know whether they had any direct impact on its disappearance – but since the horses it lived alongside were hunted by humans and also went extinct, it's possible that a combination of shifting climate and hunting pressure pushed the last of the little not-horses over the edge, too.

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[newlabdakos]

Macrauchenia

(temporal range: 7-0.01 mio. years ago)

[text from the Wikipedia article, see also link above]

Macrauchenia ("long llama", based on the now-invalid llama genus, Auchenia, from Greek "big neck") was a large, long-necked and long-limbed, three-toed native South American ungulate in the order Litopterna.[1] The genus gives its name to its family, the Macraucheniidae or "robust litopterns". Like other litopterns, it is most closely related to the odd-toed ungulates (Perissodactyla), from which litopterns diverged approximately 66 million years ago. The oldest fossils in the genus date to the late Miocene, around seven million years ago, and M. patachonica disappears from the fossil record during the late Pleistocene, around 20,000-10,000 years ago. M. patachonica is one of the last and best known member of the family and is known primarily from the Luján Formation in Argentina, but is known from localities across southern South America. Another genus of macraucheniid Xenorhinotherium was present in northeast Brazil and Venezuela during the Late Pleistocene. The type specimen was discovered by Charles Darwin during the voyage of the Beagle. In life, Macrauchenia may have resembled a humpless camel, though the two taxa are not closely related.[2] It fed on plants in a variety of environments across what is now South America. Among the species described, M. patachonica and M. ullomensis are considered valid; M. boliviensis is considered a nomen dubium; and M. antiqua (or M. antiquus) has been moved to the genus Promacrauchenia.

[litopterna]

[artbyconnorross]

A mother Macrauchenia patachonica feeds her leucistic calf on the windblown pampas of Argentina. And no, there’s not much evidence for a trunk, despite popular belief.

[lulupinchadiscos]

(via GIPHY)

[mysteriouslytransparentwitch]

(via GIPHY) Bonne nuit

[vernybvitday]

http://ift.tt/2BZ5XW3 Follow for new trendy #gif http://248gifs.ca lol, loop, yes, hello, red, ok, juliafarkas, litopterna, likedog

[alotoffire-blog]

jb 10/31/17 shelter cave 14 Questionable timelines Macrauchenia, order: litopterna (though frankly I'm having a hard time reading the reference from my phone so maybe I have that backwards. Anyway, some kinda cenozoic camel)

[trapstrblog]

[givemegifs]

[imthehuman]

With every post, a smile, ت

[alphynix]

Weird Heads Month #25: The Case of the Missing Trunk

The rhino-like toxodontids from earlier in this series weren't the only weird-headed South American ungulates. Another group known as the litopterns evolved in a different direction, becoming long-legged fast-moving animals convergently filling the same sort of ecological niches as modern horses, deer, bovids, camelids, and giraffids.

Macrauchenia patachonica was one of the strangest members of this lineage, living from the Late Miocene to the end of the Pleistocene, between about 7 million years ago and just 12,000 years ago.

It stood around 1.8m at the shoulder (5'11") and resembled a large camel or llama with thee-toed hoofed feet, but its head was… confusing.

Its skull had a bizarre combination of features, with a shape closer to a sauropod dinosaur than a mammal, a cartoonish-looking set of teeth, and its nostrils set up high above its eyes, more like a cetacean blowhole than a terrestrial herbivore.

Due to its retracted nostrils it's commonly been restored with an elephant-like or tapir-like trunk. And while a trunk gives Marauchenia a wonderfully weird and memorable appearance, there's just one problem with that interpretation.

There's no evidence for it.

Aside from its nostrils being far back on its head, it didn't have any other features associated with anchoring the complex musculature of a trunk. In fact, a recent study found that its skull characteristics were much closer to those of moose than tapirs!

It seems more likely that it had a moose-like bulbous fleshy nose – possibly giving it an enhanced sense of smell or functioning as a resonating chamber – perhaps with slightly retracted external nostrils like a giraffe or sauropod to prevent it from being stabbed in the nose when feeding on spiky vegetation.

Whatever it was doing with its weird schnoz, it was clearly a highly successful species, since it was found across most of South America in a wide range of habitats.

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[itonje]

when i was little i was obsessed with pleistocene megafauna. i had fantasies about litopterna living in my woods

[litopterna]

[ozkamal]

New trending GIF tagged lol, loop, yes, hello, red, ok, juliafarkas, litopterna, likedog via Giphy http://ift.tt/2nKuRFM

[mysteriouslytransparentwitch]

(via GIPHY)  I'm going to bed for all scandal made in Meghan & Harry this will wait for tomorrow morning for me.

Good night/ Bonne nuit tout le monde