Notoungulata

Notoungulata is an extinct order of mammalian ungulates that inhabited South America during the Paleocene to the Holocene, living from approximately 57 Ma to 11,000 years ago.[1][2] Notoungulates were morphologically diverse, with forms resembling animals as disparate as rabbits and rhinoceroses. Notoungula were the dominant group of ungulates in South America during the Paleogene and early Neogene. Their diversity declined during the Late Neogene, with only the large toxodontids persisting until the end of the Pleistocene. Several groups of Notoungulates separately evolved ever growing teeth like rodents and lagomorphs, a distinction among ungulates only shared with Elasmotherium.

Notoungulata
Temporal range: Late Paleocene (Itaboraian)-Holocene
~57–0.011 Ma
Skeleton of Toxodon platensis
Skeleton of Propachyrucos (Hegetotheriidae)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
(unranked): †Meridiungulata
Order: †Notoungulata
Roth 1903
Suborders and Families

See text

Taxonomy
Restoration of Thomashuxleya, an early Notoungulate (Isotemnidae) from the Eocene (Lutetian) of Argentina

Notoungulata is divided into two major suborders, Typotheria and Toxodontia, alongside some basal groups (Notostylopidae and Henricosborniidae) which are potentially paraphyletic.[3] Due to the isolated nature of South America, many notoungulates evolved along convergent lines into forms that resembled mammals on other continents. Examples of this are Pachyrukhos, a notoungulate that filled an ecological niche similar to those of rabbits and hares, and Homalodotherium, which resembled chalicotheres. The families Interatheriidae, Hegetotheriidae, Mesotheriidae and Toxodontidae separately evolved high crowned (hypsodont) ever-growing teeth.[4] During the Pleistocene, Toxodon was the largest common notoungulate. Most of the group (Mixotoxodon, Piauhytherium and Toxodon being exceptions) became extinct after the landbridge between North and South America formed and allowed North American ungulates to enter South America in the Great American Interchange, and then to out-compete the native fauna.[5][6][7] Mixotoxodon was the only member of the group to be successful in invading Central America and southern North America, reaching as far north as Texas.[8]

Skull of Hegetotherium
Skull of Mesotherium (Mesotheriidae)

This order is united with other South American ungulates in the super-order Meridiungulata. The notoungulate and litoptern native ungulates of South America have been shown by studies of collagen and mitochondrial DNA sequences to be a sister group to the perissodactyls, making them true ungulates.[9][10][11] The estimated divergence date is 66 million years ago.[11] This conflicts with the results of some morphological analyses which favoured them as afrotherians. It is in line with some more recent morphological analyses which suggested they were basal euungulates. Panperissodactyla has been proposed as the name of an unranked clade to include perissodactyls and their extinct South American ungulate relatives.[9]

Cifelli has argued that Notioprogonia is paraphyletic, as it would include the ancestors of the remaining suborders. Similarly, Cifelli indicated that Typotheria would be paraphyletic if it excluded Hegetotheria and he advocated inclusion of Archaeohyracidae and Hegetotheriidae in Typotheria.[12]

Notoungulata were for many years taken to include the order Arctostylopida, whose fossils are found mainly in China. Recent studies, however, have concluded that Arctostylopida are more properly classified as gliriforms, and that the notoungulates were therefore never found outside South and Central America.[13]

Based on an analysis of 133 morphological characters in 50 notoungulate genera, Billet in 2011 concluded that Homalodotheriidae, Leontiniidae, Toxodontidae, Interatheriidae, Mesotheriidae, and Hegetotheriidae are the only monophyletic families of notoungulates.[14]

Phylogeny
Notoungulata
 

Henricosbornia

 
 
 

Simpsonotus

 
 
 

Notostylops

 
 

Pyrotherium

 
 
 
Toxodontia
 
 
 

Pampahippus

 
 

Ryphodon

 
 
 
 

Thomashuxleya

 
 

Periphragnis

 
 
 
 
 

Pleurostylodon

 
 
Homalodotheriidae
 

Asmodeus

 
 

Homalodotherium

 
 
Leontiniidae
 

Colpodon

 
 

Ancylocoelus

 
 
 

Leontinia

 
 

Scarrittia

 
 
 
 

Eomorphippus

 
 

Eurygenium

 
 

Rhynchippus

 
 

Morphippus

 
 
 

Pascualihippus

 
 
 

Argyrohippus

 
Toxodontidae
 

Nesodon

 
 

Adinotherium

 
 
 

Ponanskytherium

 
 

Hoffstetterius

 
 

Toxodon

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Typotheria
 

Colbertia

 
 

Oldfieldthomasia

 
 

Campanorco

 
 

Acropithecus

 
 

Ultrapithecus

 
Interatheriidae
 

Notopithecus

 
 
 

Federicoanaya

 
 

Protypotherium

 
 

Miocochilius

 
 
 

Archaeophylus

 
 
 

Plagiarthrus

 
 
 

Interatherium

 
 

Cochilius

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Eohyrax

 
 
 

Pseudhyrax

 
 
Mesotheriidae
 
 

Plesiotypotherium

 
 

Mesotherium

 
 
 

Trachytherus

 
 
 

Archaeotypotherium

 
 

Archaeohyrax

 
Hegetotheriidae
 
 

Prohegetotherium

 
 

Hegetotherium

 
 
 
 

Prosotherium

 
 

Paedotherium

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Orders and families
gollark: A lot of the time you're just doing boring drudgery integrating other already-existing things, which will soon be significantly automated I think. Sometimes you actually need to spend time thinking about clever algorithms to do a thing, or how to make your thing go faster, or why your code mysteriously doesn't work, which is harder.
gollark: It's mentally challenging, sometimes, but obviously not particularly physically hard.
gollark: There are lots of cool applications now. Automatic generation of art, protein folding, human-level competitive programming, good OCR.
gollark: Ah, but it's *very complicated* curve fitting which can sometimes do interesting things.
gollark: Any particular improvement might not work, but I would be *very very surprised* if people several hundred years ago just happened to stumble on the optimal court system.

References
  1. Notoungulata in the Paleobiology Database. Retrieved April 2013.
  2. Turvey, Samuel T. (2009-05-28). Holocene Extinctions. OUP Oxford. ISBN 9780191579981.
  3. Croft, Darin A.; Gelfo, Javier N.; López, Guillermo M. (2020-05-30). "Splendid Innovation: The Extinct South American Native Ungulates". Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences. 48 (1): 259–290. doi:10.1146/annurev-earth-072619-060126. ISSN 0084-6597.
  4. Gomes Rodrigues, Helder; Herrel, Anthony; Billet, Guillaume (2017-01-31). "Ontogenetic and life history trait changes associated with convergent ecological specializations in extinct ungulate mammals". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 114 (5): 1069–1074. doi:10.1073/pnas.1614029114. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 5293108. PMID 28096389.
  5. Webb, S. D. (1976). "Mammalian Faunal Dynamics of the Great American Interchange". Paleobiology. 2 (3): 220–234. doi:10.1017/S0094837300004802. JSTOR 2400220.
  6. Marshall, L. G.; Cifelli, R. L. (1990). "Analysis of changing diversity patterns in Cenozoic land mammal age faunas, South America". Palaeovertebrata. 19: 169–210. Retrieved 2018-10-08.
  7. Webb, S. D. (1991). "Ecogeography and the Great American Interchange". Paleobiology. 17 (3): 266–280. doi:10.1017/S0094837300010605. JSTOR 2400869.
  8. Lundelius, E. L.; Bryant, V. M.; Mandel, R.; Thies, K. J.; Thoms, A. (January 2013). "The first occurrence of a toxodont (Mammalia, Notoungulata) in the United States". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 33 (1): 229–232. doi:10.1080/02724634.2012.711405. hdl:1808/13587.
  9. Welker et al. 2015
  10. Buckley 2015
  11. Westbury et al. 2017
  12. Cifelli 1993
  13. Missiaen et al. 2006
  14. Billet 2011

Bibliography

Further reading
  • Carroll, Robert Lynn (1988). Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company. ISBN 9780716718222. OCLC 14967288.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • McKenna, M.C. (1975). "Toward a phylogenetic classification of the Mammalia". In Luckett, W.P.; Szalay, F.S. (eds.). Phylogeny of the primates: a multidisciplinary approach (Proceedings of WennerGren Symposium no. 61, Burg Wartenstein, Austria, July 6–14, 1974). New York: Plenum. pp. 21–46. doi:10.1007/978-1-4684-2166-8_2. ISBN 978-1-4684-2168-2. OCLC 1693999.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • McKenna, Malcolm C.; Bell, Susan K. (1997). Classification of Mammals Above the Species Level. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0231110138. OCLC 37345734.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.