Cutler Fossil Site
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Cutler Fossil Site
The Cutler Fossil Site ( 8DA2001) is a sinkhole near Biscayne Bay in Palmetto Bay, Florida, which is south of Miami. The site has yielded bones of Pleistocene animals and bones as well as artifacts of Paleo-Indians and people of the Archaic period. Discovery and excavation The presence of fossils in a sinkhole on the Charles Deering Estate was discovered in 1979 by people searching for wood to use as knife handles. They took some unusually hard pieces they found to an archaeologist, who identified them as fossil horse teeth. The discovery was not publicized until an archaeological excavation could be mounted in 1985, but in the meantime, an unauthorized collector had dug pits in the sinkhole, removed fossils and artifacts, and disturbed contexts. Later, most of the fossils and artifacts removed by the collector were recovered. The Deering Estate protested designation of the sinkhole as a "historically significant site", which would have protected the area from development. Event ...
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Smithsonian Trinomial
A Smithsonian trinomial (formally the Smithsonian Institution Trinomial System, abbreviated SITS) is a unique identifier assigned to archaeological sites in many states in the United States. They are composed of one or two digits coding for the state, typically two letters coding for the county or county-equivalent within the state, and one or more sequential digits representing the order in which the site was listed in that county. The Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ... developed the site number system in the 1930s and 1940s, but it no longer maintains the system. Trinomials are now assigned by the individual states. The 48 states then in the union were assigned numbers in alphabetical order. Alaska was assigned number 49 and Hawaii was assigne ...
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Horse
The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature, ''Eohippus'', into the large, single-toed animal of today. Humans began domesticating horses around 4000 BCE, and their domestication is believed to have been widespread by 3000 BCE. Horses in the subspecies ''caballus'' are domesticated, although some domesticated populations live in the wild as feral horses. These feral populations are not true wild horses, as this term is used to describe horses that have never been domesticated. There is an extensive, specialized vocabulary used to describe equine-related concepts, covering everything from anatomy to life stages, size, colors, markings, breeds, locomotion, and behavior. Horses are adapted to run, allowing them to quickly escape predators, and po ...
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Spizaetus
''Spizaetus'' is the typical hawk-eagle birds of prey genus found in the tropics of the Americas. It was however used to indicate a group of tropical eagles that included species occurring in southern and southeastern Asia and one representative of this genus in the rainforests of West Africa. The Old World species have been separated into the genus ''Nisaetus''. Several species have a prominent head crest. These are medium to large-sized raptors, most being between long, and tend to be long-tailed and slender. The American Ornithologists' Union merges '' Spizastur'' into ''Spizaetus'' since 2007. ''Spizaetus'' eagles are forest birds with several species having a preference for highland woodlands. They build stick nests in trees. The sexes are similarly plumaged with typical raptor brown upperparts and pale underparts, but young birds are distinguishable from adults, often by a whiter head. These eagles eat medium-sized vertebrate prey such as mammals, birds and reptiles. Th ...
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Milvago
''Milvago'' is a genus of bird of prey in the family Falconidae. Species ''Milvago'' contains two extant species: They are native to South America and Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean, with ''M. chimachima'' just reaching to the Isthmus of Panama and into Costa Rica, though recently having expanded its range into the northern part of the country. Prehistorically the genus extended much further north into Cuba and Hispaniola, where it might have become extinct as late as after the arrival of the first humans in the early Holocene, though there is no evidence for this at present and they more likely disappeared already during the last glacial period. ;Fossil species * †'' Milvago brodkorbi'' (Late Pleistocene of Peru) * †'' Milvago alexandri'' (Late Pleistocene of Hispaniola, West Indies) * †'' Milvago carbo,'' Cuban caracara (Holocene of Cuba, West Indies) *†'' Milvago diazfrancoi'' (Late Pleistocene of Cuba) A paleosubspecies of the yellow-headed caracara ...
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Jaguar
The jaguar (''Panthera onca'') is a large cat species and the only living member of the genus '' Panthera'' native to the Americas. With a body length of up to and a weight of up to , it is the largest cat species in the Americas and the third largest in the world. Its distinctively marked coat features pale yellow to tan colored fur covered by spots that transition to rosettes on the sides, although a melanistic black coat appears in some individuals. The jaguar's powerful bite allows it to pierce the carapaces of turtles and tortoises, and to employ an unusual killing method: it bites directly through the skull of mammalian prey between the ears to deliver a fatal blow to the brain. The modern jaguar's ancestors probably entered the Americas from Eurasia during the Early Pleistocene via the land bridge that once spanned the Bering Strait. Today, the jaguar's range extends from core Southwestern United States across Mexico and much of Central America, the Amazon rainfo ...
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Smilodon
''Smilodon'' is a genus of the extinct machairodont subfamily of the felids. It is one of the most famous prehistoric mammals and the best known saber-toothed cat. Although commonly known as the saber-toothed tiger, it was not closely related to the tiger or other modern cats. ''Smilodon'' lived in the Americas during the Pleistocene epoch (2.5 Year#mya, mya – 10,000 years ago). The genus was named in 1842 based on fossils from Brazil; the generic name means "scalpel" or "two-edged knife" combined with "tooth". Three species are recognized today: ''S. gracilis'', ''S. fatalis'', and ''S. populator''. The two latter species were probably descended from ''S. gracilis'', which itself probably evolved from ''Megantereon''. The hundreds of individuals obtained from the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles constitute the largest collection of ''Smilodon'' fossils. Overall, ''Smilodon'' was more robustly built than any Neontology, extant cat, with particularly well-d ...
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Panthera Atrox
''Panthera atrox'', better known as the American lion, also called the North American lion, or American cave lion, is an extinct Pantherinae, pantherine cat that lived in North America during the Pleistocene Epoch (geology), epoch and the early Holocene epoch, about 340,000 to 11,000 years ago. Its fossils have been Excavation (archaeology), excavated from Alaska to Mexico. Genetic analysis has shown that the American lion and the Late Pleistocene Eurasian cave lion (''Panthera spelaea'') are sister lineages. It was about 25% larger than the modern lion, making it one of the largest known felids. History and taxonomy Initial discovery and North American fossils The first specimen now assigned to ''Panthera atrox'' was collected in the 1830s and placed in the collection of by William Henry Huntingtion Esquire, who announced their discovery to the American Philosophical Society on April 1, 1836 and placed with other fossils from Huntington's collection in the Academy of Nat ...
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Tremarctos Floridanus
''Tremarctos floridanus'', occasionally called the Florida spectacled bear, Florida cave bear, or rarely Florida short-faced bear, is an extinct species of bear in the family Ursidae, subfamily Tremarctinae. ''T. floridanus'' was widespread in the southeastern United States during the Rancholabrean epoch (250,000–11,000 years ago), with scattered reports of fossils from other parts of North America and from earlier epochs. Environment ''T. floridanus'' was widely distributed south of the continental ice sheet, along the Gulf Coast through Florida, north to Tennessee and South Carolina during the Rancholabrean epoch (250,000–11,000 years ago). A few fossil specimens have been reported from the Irvingtonian (2.5 million–250,000 years ago) and Blancan (4.75–1.8 million years ago) epochs in western North America. Fossils of ''T. floridanus'' have been reported from two sites in Belize. ''Arctodus'' (3 million–11,000 years ago) was a contemporary and shared its habitat with ...
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Dire Wolf
The dire wolf (''Aenocyon dirus'' ) is an extinct canine. It is one of the most famous prehistoric carnivores in North America, along with its extinct competitor ''Smilodon''. The dire wolf lived in the Americas and eastern Asia during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene epochs (125,000–9,500 years ago). The species was named in 1858, four years after the first specimen had been found. Two subspecies are recognized: ''Aenocyon dirus guildayi'' and ''Aenocyon dirus dirus''. The largest collection of its fossils has been obtained from the Rancho La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles. Dire wolf remains have been found across a broad range of habitats including the plains, grasslands, and some forested mountain areas of North America, the arid savanna of South America, and the steppes of eastern Asia. The sites range in elevation from sea level to . Dire wolf fossils have rarely been found north of 42°N latitude; there have been only five unconfirmed reports above this latitude. ...
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Bison Antiquus
''Bison antiquus'', the antique bison or ancient bison, is an extinct species of bison that lived in Late Pleistocene North America until around 10,000 years ago. It was one of the most common large herbivores on the North American continent during the late Pleistocene, and is a direct ancestor of the living American bison along with ''Bison occidentalis''.C. G Van Zyll de Jong , 1986, A systematic study of recent bison, with particular consideration of the wood bison (Bison bison athabascae Rhoads 1898), p.53, National Museum of Natural Sciences History The first described remains of ''Bison antiquus'' were collected at Big Bone Lick, Kentucky in Pleistocene deposits in the 1850s and only consisted of a fragmentary posterior skull and a nearly complete horn core. The fossil ( ANSP 12990) was briefly described by Joseph Leidy in 1852. Although the original fossils were fragmentary, a complete skull of an old male was discovered in southern California and were described as a ...
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Hemiauchenia
''Hemiauchenia'' is a genus of laminoid camelids that evolved in North America in the Miocene period about 10 million years ago. This genus diversified and moved to South America in the Early Pleistocene, as part of the Great American Biotic Interchange, giving rise to modern lamines. The genus became extinct at the end of the Pleistocene. Broad features of genus ''Hemiauchenia'' The genus name is derived from the grc, ἡμι- (, "half"-) and αὐχήν (, "neck"). Species are specified using Latin adjectives or Latinised names from other languages. North American fossils Remains of these species have been found in assorted locations around North America, including Florida, Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, Arizona, Mexico, California, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Oregon, Colorado, and Washington. The "large-headed llama", ''H. macrocephala'', was widely distributed in North and Central America, with ''H. vera'' being known from the western United States and northern Mexico. ''H. m ...
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