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Dukecynus
''Dukecynus'' is an extinct genus of meat-eating metatherian belonging to the order Sparassodonta, which lived in South America during the Middle Miocene ( Laventan), between about 13.8 and 11.8 million years ago.Goin, F. J. 1997 New clues for understanding Neogene marsupial radiations. In ''A history of the neotropical fauna. Vertebrate paleobiology of the Miocene in Colombia'' (ed. R. F. Kay, R. H. Maden, R. L. Cifelli & J. Flynn), pp. 185–204. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. The name of the genus meaning "Duke dog", for Duke University and the Greek word ''cynos'', dog, for the pretended similarity of this animal with dogs. A single species known so far, ''Dukecynus magnus''. The species name "magnus" derives from Latin for big, to reflect their great size. Description ''Dukecynus'' is only known from its holotype, IGM 251149, a heavily damaged partial skull preserving parts of the lower and upper jaw as well as associated fragments of the skeleton. This spe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Honda Group, Colombia
The Honda Group ( es, Grupo Honda, Tsh, Ngh) is a geological group of the Upper and Middle Magdalena Basins and the adjacent Central and Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes. The group, in older literature also defined as formation, is in its present-day type section in the Tatacoa Desert in the department of Huila subdivided into two main formations; La Victoria and Villavieja. The group was originally defined in and named after Honda, Tolima, but has been redefined based on the many fossil finds in the Tatacoa Desert, to the south. In the original type section of its occurrence, the thick group is subdivided into three formations, from old to young; Cambrás, San Antonio and Los Limones. The group dates to the Neogene period; in its broadest definition from the Late Oligocene to Late Miocene, and in the redefined type section restricted to the Laventan age of the South American Land Mammal Ages (SALMA), equivalent to the Middle Miocene Serravallian epoch. The Honda Gr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Venta (Colombia)
La Venta is a fossil locality located in the modern departments of Tolima and Huila in Colombia. This site is one of the richest Neogene fossil assemblages in South America and represents the best-known Cenozoic fossil site outside of Argentina. It provides a glimpse of what life in the region was like before the main wave of the Great American Interchange. Geology The fossils occur in Middle Miocene rocks of the Honda Group, which is divided into the younger Villavieja Formation and the older La Victoria Formation. The La Venta fauna contained ancient species of animal genera and families still alive today, as well as some entirely extinct prehistoric lineages. These animals lived some 13.8 to 12 million years ago in the Laventan age, which was named after La Venta. At that time, the climate of the region was wetter than today and there was much forest of trees similar (and probably related) to the ''sapino'' (''Goupia glabra'') of our time. List of fauna Fossil animals f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sparassodonta
Sparassodonta (from Ancient Greek, Greek ['], to tear, rend; and , gen. [', '], tooth) is an extinct order (biology), order of carnivore, carnivorous metatherian mammals native to South America, related to modern marsupials. They were once considered to be true marsupials, but are now thought to be a separate side branch that split before the last common ancestor of all modern marsupials. A number of these mammalian predators closely resemble placental predators that evolved separately on other continents, and are cited frequently as examples of convergent evolution. They were first described by Florentino Ameghino, from fossils found in the Santa Cruz beds of Patagonia. Sparassodonts were present throughout South America's long period of "splendid isolation" during the Cenozoic; during this time, they shared the niches for large warm-blooded predators with the flightless Phorusrhacidae, terror birds. Previously, it was thought that these mammals died out in the face of competit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Borhyaenoidea
Sparassodonta (from Greek to tear, rend; and , gen. , ' tooth) is an extinct order of carnivorous metatherian mammals native to South America, related to modern marsupials. They were once considered to be true marsupials, but are now thought to be a separate side branch that split before the last common ancestor of all modern marsupials. A number of these mammalian predators closely resemble placental predators that evolved separately on other continents, and are cited frequently as examples of convergent evolution. They were first described by Florentino Ameghino, from fossils found in the Santa Cruz beds of Patagonia. Sparassodonts were present throughout South America's long period of "splendid isolation" during the Cenozoic; during this time, they shared the niches for large warm-blooded predators with the flightless terror birds. Previously, it was thought that these mammals died out in the face of competition from "more competitive" placental carnivorans during the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laventan
The Laventan ( es, Laventense) age is a period of geologic time (13.8 to 11.8 Ma) within the Middle Miocene epoch of the Neogene, used more specifically within the SALMA classification in South America. It follows the Colloncuran and precedes the Mayoan age.Madden et al., 1997 Etymology The age is named after the Miocene Lagerstätte La Venta, where a rich biodiversity from the Middle Miocene has been recovered from the Honda Group. Formations Fossil content Correlations The Laventan (13.8 to 11.8 Ma) correlates with: * NALMA ** latest Barstovian (15.97-13.65 Ma)Barstovian at Fossilworks.org ** early |
Sparassodonts
Sparassodonta (from Greek to tear, rend; and , gen. , ' tooth) is an extinct order of carnivorous metatherian mammals native to South America, related to modern marsupials. They were once considered to be true marsupials, but are now thought to be a separate side branch that split before the last common ancestor of all modern marsupials. A number of these mammalian predators closely resemble placental predators that evolved separately on other continents, and are cited frequently as examples of convergent evolution. They were first described by Florentino Ameghino, from fossils found in the Santa Cruz beds of Patagonia. Sparassodonts were present throughout South America's long period of "splendid isolation" during the Cenozoic; during this time, they shared the niches for large warm-blooded predators with the flightless terror birds. Previously, it was thought that these mammals died out in the face of competition from "more competitive" placental carnivorans during the Pli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thylacosmilidae
Thylacosmilidae is an extinct Family (biology), family of metatherian predators, related to the modern marsupials, which lived in South America between the Miocene and Pliocene epochs. Like other South American mammalian predators that lived prior to the Great American Biotic Interchange, these animals belonged to the order Sparassodonta, which occupied the ecological niche of many eutherian mammals of the order Carnivora from other continents. The family's most notable feature are the elongated, laterally flattened fangs, which is a remarkable evolutionary convergence with other saber-toothed mammals like ''Barbourofelis'' and ''Smilodon''. Taxonomic history The family Thylacosmilidae was originally erected by Riggs in 1933, to accommodate ''Thylacosmilus'', found in the Pliocene Brochero Formation of Argentina. Later, the family was demoted to a subfamily, as Thylacosmilinae, within Borhyaenidae, a group of superficially canid-like sparassodonts, under the assumption that '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miocene Mammals Of South America
The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recent" because it has 18% fewer modern marine invertebrates than the Pliocene has. The Miocene is preceded by the Oligocene and is followed by the Pliocene. As Earth went from the Oligocene through the Miocene and into the Pliocene, the climate slowly cooled towards a series of ice ages. The Miocene boundaries are not marked by a single distinct global event but consist rather of regionally defined boundaries between the warmer Oligocene and the cooler Pliocene Epoch. During the Early Miocene, the Arabian Peninsula collided with Eurasia, severing the connection between the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean, and allowing a faunal interchange to occur between Eurasia and Africa, including the dispersal of proboscideans into Eurasia. During the late ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prothylacynus
''Prothylacinus'' is an extinct genus of South American metatherian, that lived during the Early Miocene. Distribution Fossils of ''Prothylacinus'' have been found in the Friasian Río Frias Formation of Chile and the Santacrucian Santa Cruz Formation of Argentina.''Prothylacinus'' at Fossilworks
Fossilworks is a portal which provides query, download, and analysis tools to facilitate access to the Paleobiology Database
The Paleobiology Database is an online resource for information on the distribution and classification of fossil animals ... .org
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Lycopsis
''Lycopsis'' is an extinct genus of South American metatherian, that lived during the Miocene in Argentina and Colombia. History Although not named until 1927, Florentino Ameghino described a species now seen as synonymous with ''Lycopsis torresi'', ''Anatherium oxyrhynchus'', in 1895 based on a mandibular ramus with several teeth.Marshall, L. G. (1977). A new species of Lycopsis (Borhyaenidae: Marsupialia) from the La Venta fauna (Late Miocene) of Colombia, South America. ''Journal of Paleontology'', 633-642. The fossil was recovered from Puesto Estancia La Costa in Santa Cruz, Argentina, dating to the Miocene. The type material of ''Lycopsis'' was collected in July 1895 by "C. Berry" from the middle Miocene strata of the Santa Cruz Formation along the Santa Cruz River in the same area.Cabrera, Á. (1927). Datos para el conocimiento de los dasiuroideos fósiles argentinos. ''Revista del Museo de la Plata'', ''30'', 271-315. The fossils (MLP 11-113) were fragmentary, constitu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paraphyletic
In taxonomy (general), taxonomy, a group is paraphyletic if it consists of the group's most recent common ancestor, last common ancestor and most of its descendants, excluding a few Monophyly, monophyletic subgroups. The group is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In contrast, a monophyletic group (a clade) includes a common ancestor and ''all'' of its descendants. The terms are commonly used in phylogenetics (a subfield of biology) and in the tree model of historical linguistics. Paraphyletic groups are identified by a combination of Synapomorphy and apomorphy, synapomorphies and symplesiomorphy, symplesiomorphies. If many subgroups are missing from the named group, it is said to be polyparaphyletic. The term was coined by Willi Hennig to apply to well-known taxa like Reptilia (reptiles) which, as commonly named and traditionally defined, is paraphyletic with respect to mammals and birds. Reptilia contains the last common ancestor of reptiles a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
