Sudamericidae

Sudamericidae
Temporal range: Late Cretaceous to Miocene
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Class: Mammalia
Order: Gondwanatheria
Family: Sudamericidae
Scillato-Yané and Pascual, 1984
Genera
Synonyms
  • Gondwanatheriidae Bonaparte, 1986

Sudamericidae is a family of gondwanathere mammals that lived during the late Cretaceous to Miocene.Its members include Lavanify and Vintana from the Cretaceous of Madagascar, Bharattherium (=Dakshina) from the Cretaceous of India, Gondwanatherium from the Cretaceous of Argentina, Sudamerica from the Paleocene of Argentina, and unnamed forms from the Eocene of Antarctica (closely related to Sudamerica) and Cretaceous of Tanzania.[2] More recently, Patagonia, a mammal from the Colhuehuapian stage of the Miocene of southern South America, has been suggested to be a sudamericid.[3]

Vintana is one of the most complete gondwanathere remains, and offers an insight to the anatomy and habits of sudamericids as a whole. It possesses massive lateral flanges in its skull, and bears massive olphactory bulbs. At a size of 20 pounds, it is one of the largest Mesozoic mammals known.

References

  1. Nicolás R. Chimento, Federico L. Agnolin and Fernando E. Novas (2015). "The bizarre ‘metatherians’ Groeberia and Patagonia, late surviving members of gondwanatherian mammals". Historical Biology: An International Journal of Paleobiology 27 (5): 603–623. doi:10.1080/08912963.2014.903945.
  2. Gurovich and Beck, 2009; Krause et al., 1997; Prasad, 2008; Prasad et al., 2007; Wilson et al., 2007
  3. Nicolás R. Chimento, Federico L. Agnolin and Fernando E. Novas (2015). "The bizarre ‘metatherians’ Groeberia and Patagonia, late surviving members of gondwanatherian mammals". Historical Biology: An International Journal of Paleobiology 27 (5): 603–623. doi:10.1080/08912963.2014.903945.

Literature cited

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