Catonyx
Catonyx | |
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Replica of a Catonyx skull at the Museo delle Scienze | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Pilosa |
Family: | †Scelidotheriidae |
Genus: | †Catonyx Ameghino, 1891 |
Species | |
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Catonyx is an extinct genus of ground sloth of the family Scelidotheriidae, endemic to South America during the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs.[1] It lived from 2.5 Ma to about 10,000 years ago, existing for approximately 2.49 million years.[2] The most recent date obtained is about 9600 B.P.[3][4]
Description
This animal, like many other terrestrial
Taxonomy
At a cave in Lagoa Santa, Brazil, Peter Wilhelm Lund and his crew members collected the fragmentary fossils of a fossil sloth that Wilhelm named Megalonyx cuvieri in 1838. Catonyx, the genus name, was made by Ameghino in 1891. It was assigned to Scelidotheriinae by Gaudin in 1995.[6] Scelidotheriinae was elevated back to family status by Presslee et al. in 2019.[7]
The very first fossils of this animal were found in Upper Pleistocene strata of Brazil and were described by Lund in 1839, but for a long time there was considerable systematic confusion: the remains were gradually attributed to the genera Scelidotherium and Scelidodon. Only recently have revisions based on clear morphological anatomy been proposed, according to which the genera Scelidotherium and Catonyx are two valid taxa, while Scelidodon may or may not be a valid genus. Catonyx, in any case, is a member of the Scelidotheriidae, a group of terrestrial sloths known from the Miocene, Pliocene, and Pleistocene and characterized by an elongated snout; scelidotheres themselves part are usually placed as a subfamily of the Mylodontidae, although they are sometimes considered a separate family, Scelidotheriidae.[7]
The
Below is a phylogenetic tree of the
Scelidotheriinae
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Palaeobiology
The cranial anatomy of the species C. tarijensis indicates it may have been a browser which used its strong lips to grab vegetation,[10] and Santos Pereira et al. (2013) tentatively suggested browsing habits for C. cuvieri.[11] Isotopic analysis of Smilodon populator remains from Brazil indicates that Catonyx was one of its main prey items.[12]
Fossil distribution
Fossils of Catonyx have been uncovered in Brazil, the San José Formation of Uruguay, the Tezanos Pinto Formation of Argentina,[13] and the Tarija Valley of Bolivia.[10]
Paleoecology
In the Brazilian Intertropical Region in eastern Brazil, Catonyx was a browser in arboreal savannahs and forested grasslands. Large, mesoherbivorous mammals in the BIR were widespread and diverse, including the cow-like
References
- S2CID 86021240.
- ^ PaleoBiology Database: Catonyx, basic info
- ISBN 978-0-19-953509-5.
- ISBN 978-1-4020-8792-9.
- S2CID 90400372.
- JSTOR 4523658.
- ^ S2CID 174813630.
- S2CID 84078331.
- S2CID 226319627.
- ^ ISSN 2296-701X.
- .
- ISSN 2236-1715.
- ^ "Fossilworks: Catonyx".
- ^ Keeley, J. E., & Rundel, P. W. (2003). Evolution of CAM and C4 carbon-concentrating mechanisms. International journal of plant sciences, 164(S3), S55-S77.
- S2CID 225543776.
- ^ a b c Cartelle, Castor; Hartwig, W. C. (1996). "A new extinct primate among the Pleistocene megafauna of Bahia, Brazil". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 93 (13): 6405–6409.
- ISBN 978-0-226-19542-1.
- ^ Halenar, Lauren B. (December 2011). "Reconstructing the Locomotor Repertoire of Protopithecus brasiliensis". The Anatomical Record. 294 (12): 2048–2063.
Further reading
- M. A. T. Dantas and M. H. Zucon. 2007. Occurrence of Catonyx cuvieri (Lund, 1839) (Tardigrada, Scelidotheriinae) in Late Pleistocene–Holocene of Brazil. Revista Brasileira de Paleontologia 10(2):129-132
- M. A. T. Dantas, M. H. Zucon, and A. M. Ribeiro. 2005. Megafauna Pleistocênica da fazenda elefante, Gararu, Sergipe, Brasil. Geociências 24(3):277-287
- A. M. Ghilardi, M. A. Fernandes, and M. E. Bichuette. 2011. Megafauna from the Late Pleistocene-Holocene deposits of the Upper Ribeira karst area, southeast Brazil. Quaternary International 245(2):369-378
- R. P. Lopes and J. C. Pereira. 2010. Fossils of Scelidotheriinae Ameghino, 1904 (Xenarthra, Pilosa) in the Pleistocene deposits of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Gaea: Journal of Geoscience 6(1):44-52