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Thylacosmilids
Thylacosmilidae is an extinct 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 ''Thylaco ... [...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] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great American Biotic Interchange
The Great American Biotic Interchange (commonly abbreviated as GABI), also known as the Great American Interchange and the Great American Faunal Interchange, was an important late Cenozoic paleozoogeographic biotic interchange event in which land and freshwater fauna migrated from North America via Central America to South America and vice versa, as the volcanic Isthmus of Panama rose up from the sea floor and bridged the formerly separated continents. Although earlier dispersals had occurred, probably over water, the migration accelerated dramatically about 2.7 million years ( Ma) ago during the Piacenzian age. It resulted in the joining of the Neotropic (roughly South American) and Nearctic (roughly North American) biogeographic realms definitively to form the Americas. The interchange is visible from observation of both biostratigraphy and nature (neontology). Its most dramatic effect is on the zoogeography of mammals, but it also gave an opportunity for reptiles, amphibians, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anachlysictis
''Anachlysictis gracilis'' is an extinct carnivorous mammal belonging to the group Sparassodonta, which were metatherians (a group including marsupials and their close relatives) that inhabited South America during the Cenozoic. ''Anachlysictis'' is the first record of such borhyaenoids in northern South America, and also the most primitive known member of the family Thylacosmilidae, a group of predators equipped with "saber teeth". It was also the only confirmed record of a thylacosmilid that did not belong to the genus ''Thylacosmilus'' until the official publication of ''Patagosmilus'' in 2010. This species was found in the Villavieja Formation in the area of La Venta in Colombia, a famous fossil deposit in the Middle Miocene (Laventan; 13.8-11.8 million years ago),''Anachlysictis gracilis' ... [...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] |
Borhyaenidae
Borhyaenidae is an extinct metatherian family of low-slung, heavily built predatory mammals in the order Sparassodonta. Borhyaenids are not true marsupials, but members of a sister taxon, Sparassodonta. Like most metatherians, borhyaenids and other sparassodonts are thought to have had a pouch to carry their offspring around. Borhyaenids had strong and powerful jaws, like those of the unrelated placentalians ''Hyaenodon'' and ''Andrewsarchus'', for crushing bones. Borhyaenids grew up to an average of long. ''Borhyaena'' is the type genus of this group. Originally, the borhyaenids were one of the most diverse groups of sparassodonts, including all species not originally included in the Thylacosmilidae. However, in recent years, with the elevation of most sparassodont subfamilies to family rank and the discovery that borhyaenids are more closely related to proborhyaenids and thylacosmilids than other sparassodonts, the family has been reduced to seven species in four genera. Th ... [...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 |
Early Miocene
The Early Miocene (also known as Lower Miocene) is a sub-epoch of the Miocene Epoch made up of two stages: the Aquitanian and Burdigalian stages. The sub-epoch lasted from 23.03 ± 0.05 Ma to 15.97 ± 0.05 Ma (million years ago). It was preceded by the Oligocene epoch. As the climate started to get cooler, the landscape started to change. New mammals evolved to replace the extinct animals of the Oligocene epoch. The first members of the hyena and weasel family started to evolve to replace the extinct ''Hyaenodon'', entelodonts and bear-dogs. The chalicotheres survived the Oligocene epoch. A new genus of entelodont called ''Daeodon'' evolved in order to adapt to the new habitats and hunt the new prey animals of the Early Miocene epoch; it quickly became the top predator of North America. But it became extinct due to competition from '' Amphicyon'', a newcomer from Eurasia. ''Amphicyon'' bested ''Daeodon'' because the bear-dog Amphicyonidae is an extinct family of terrestr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lagerstätte
A Lagerstätte (, from ''Lager'' 'storage, lair' '' Stätte'' 'place'; plural ''Lagerstätten'') is a sedimentary deposit that exhibits extraordinary fossils with exceptional preservation—sometimes including preserved soft tissues. These formations may have resulted from carcass burial in an anoxic environment with minimal bacteria, thus delaying the decomposition of both gross and fine biological features until long after a durable impression was created in the surrounding matrix. ''Lagerstätten'' span geological time from the Neoproterozoic era to the present. Worldwide, some of the best examples of near-perfect fossilization are the Cambrian Maotianshan shales and Burgess Shale, the Silurian Waukesha Biota, the Devonian Hunsrück Slates and Gogo Formation, the Carboniferous Mazon Creek, the Jurassic Posidonia Shale and Solnhofen Limestone, the Cretaceous Yixian, Santana, and Agua Nueva formations, the Eocene Green River Formation, the Miocene Foulden Maar and Ashfall F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barbourofelis
''Barbourofelis'' is an extinct genus of large, predatory, feliform carnivoran mammals of the family Barbourofelidae (false saber-tooth cats). The genus was endemic to North America and Eurasia during the Miocene until its extinction during the Tortonian, living from 13.6 to 7.3 Ma. Taxonomy ''Barbourofelis'' was named by Bertrand Schultz, Marian Schultz and Larry Martin (1970) in honor of Erwin Hinckley Barbour, who died a few days before the holotype was discovered. Its type is ''Barbourofelis fricki'' and is the type genus of the subfamily Barbourofelinae. It was reassigned to Hoplophoneinae by Flynn and Galiano (1982), then to Barbourofelidae by Bryant (1991), and to Nimravidae by Schultz, et al. (1970) and Martin (1998). Description While the species ''B. fricki'' is thought to have been a lion-sized predator, having a weight comparable to an African lion, with limb bones indicating a muscular, robust body, other species in the genus, such as ''B. morrisi'', are b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colombia
Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuela to the east and northeast, Brazil to the southeast, Ecuador and Peru to the south and southwest, the Pacific Ocean to the west, and Panama to the northwest. Colombia is divided into 32 departments and the Capital District of Bogotá, the country's largest city. It covers an area of 1,141,748 square kilometers (440,831 sq mi), and has a population of 52 million. Colombia's cultural heritage—including language, religion, cuisine, and art—reflects its history as a Spanish colony, fusing cultural elements brought by immigration from Europe and the Middle East, with those brought by enslaved Africans, as well as with those of the various Amerindian civilizations that predate colonization. Spanish is th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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