Piauhytherium
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Piauhytherium Temporal range: Pleistocene |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | †Notoungulata |
| Family: | †Toxodontidae |
| Genus: |
Piauhytherium Guérin & Faure, 2013 |
| Binomial name | |
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†Pauhytherium capivarae Guérin & Faure, 2013 |
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Piauhytherium is an extinct genus of herbivorous mammal, pertaining to the order of the notoungulates and the family of the toxodontids. It lived during the (about 10.000 years ago), being found its fossils remains in Brazil. The species type and only known is Piauhytherium capivarae.
This animal in general terms would remember to a hippopotamus, endowed of a big and short snout, a massive body and a big head. The skull measured almost 60 centimetres of length, what indicates that Piauhytherium could be so big like a modern black rhinoceros. With regard to its next relatives, such as Toxodon, this animal possessed legs shorter and thicker, in addition to certain differences in the denture that distinguish it from other notoungulates present in this period.
Piauhytherium capivarae was described for the first time in 2013, with base in a complete skull with jaw and some postcranial bones found in Serra da Capivara in Piauí, in the northeast of Brazil. This animal belonged to a group of notoungulates known like the Toxodonta, which comprises to numerous herbivores spread during the Cenozoic in South America, which its more known representative is Toxodon (which some remains found in Brazil have been reassigned to Piauhytherium). Piauhytherium must be very similar to the latter, but differentiated in some features related with the bones of its legs and characteristics of the teeth.
The limb bones, that are particularly short and massive, led to the authors of the original scientific description to make the hypothesis that this animal could have had a semiaquatic lifestyle, similar to that of the current hippopotamuses. This hypothesis already had been proposed previously for other toxodontids (between them Toxodon), but equally has been refuted by other studies. The discovery of Piauhytherium is remarkable since it increases the degree of diversity of the toxodontids in the final stage of his evolutionary history: in the Upper Pleistocene only was knew additionally Toxodon, Trigodonops and Mixotoxodon.
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