Notoungulata

Paleobiology

Paleobiology

Understanding how extinct mammals lived is what attracted me to the field of paleontology in the first place. Living mammals encompass an amazing diversity of lifestyles and adaptations that are even greater when extinct species are included. Paleobiological studies aim to reconstruct the characteristics and habits of these species. This can be particularly challenging for […]

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Notoungulata

Notoungulata

Notoungulates –  literally “southern ungulates.” – may be the most emblematic of all extinct South American mammals. Notoungulates were the most abundant of the native South American ungulates, and probably more species of notoungulates have been named than all other groups of endemic ungulates combined. The group includes more than 150 extinct genera in around a dozen families. Notoungulates lived […]

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Tinguiririca

Tinguiririca

Perhaps the most important of our Chilean localities is Tinguiririca, which is located in central Chile near the town of Termas del Flaco. In the transition between the warm, equitable climate of the Eocene Epoch (54.8 to 33.7 million years ago) and the cooler climate of the Oligocene Epoch (33.7 to 23.8 mya), numerous ‘archaic’ […]

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Basal Notoungulates (Henricosborniidae, Notostylopidae)

Basal Notoungulates (Henricosborniidae, Notostylopidae)

The basal notoungulate families Henricosborniidae and Notostylopidae are mainly known from Eocene fossil sites. Henricosborniids have also been identified from at least one Paleocene site (Tiupampa), and notostylopids survived into the early Oligocene based on a recently named species from Chile, Chilestylops davidsoni (Bradham et al. 2015). The cheek teeth of notostylopids are rather distinctive (see Simpson 1948 for […]

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