Proterotheriidae
Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay, Colombia
The Proterotheriidae (Size: Proteros = front; Therion = mammal) are an extinct mammal family that has lived in South America during the Cenozoic era and whose last representatives have become extinct at the end of the Pleistocene. The animals remembered in morphological characteristics to horses even though they were not closely related to this, and instead included in the order of Litopterna.
Characteristics and dissemination
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 well monodactyle family of horses. With the horses, the animals were not used, and thus provide an impressive example of convergent evolution. The teeth were brachyodont or mesodont. The family has been demonstrated since the upper Paleocene. One knows their remains from Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay and Colombia. At the end of the Miocene form their abundance decreased and long believed that the animals are extinct in the late Pliocene. However, recent findings show, however, that the animals survived until the late Pleistocene. This last type of Proterotheriidae was Neolicaphrium recens from the Lujanian (late Pleistocene to early Holocene ) and the Ensenadan (early to middle Pleistocene ) of Argentina and Uruguay. Not precisely certain fossils of the family are known from the Lujanian Brazil beyond.
Genera
Some genera of the family:
- Diadiaphorus
- Thoatherium
- Anisolophus
- Tetramerorhinus
- Epecuenia
- Eoauchenia
- Eoauchenia
- Neolicaphrium