Notiomastodon

• Araxá, Minas Gerais (Brazil )

Notiomastodon was a genus of Gomphotheriidae and lived until the end of the Pleistocene in South America.

Features

Notiomastodon was a big tusker. There had, especially when compared to the same time occurring genus Haplomastodon, relatively straight tusks. The molars were built more complex.

Dissemination

Notiomastodon has long been equated with the North American genus Stegomastodon. Today, however, assumes that there is a distinct genus, which has evolved in South America from the North American immigrants Cuvieronius.

The only way Notiomastodon platensis inhabited primarily the Pampas of Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. She survived until the latest Pleistocene, and was a contemporary of the earliest humans, until it became extinct about 11,000 years ago. Notiomastodon disappeared along with a number of large animal species that are dying out around the same time in America and other parts of the world as part of a Quaternary extinctions. In Arroio Touro Passo, Brazil and Muaco, Venezuela found Stegomastodon remnants could be associated with human traces.

Way of life

The molars of Notiomastodon suggest that it might take a lot of grass food next to fallen leaves and branches, including former gomphotheres with their teat-shaped tooth structures were not able to. Unlike Haplomastodon that occurred at the same time in northern South America, Stegomastodon was to be found in the Pleistocene, especially in the Pampa areas in the south of the continent. So it was probably primarily a grassland dwellers. It preferred warm climates and was represented in the cooler areas of the Andes of Cuvieronius.