''Catagonus carlesi'', or ''Parachoerus carlesi'', is an extinct species of

peccary A peccary (also javelina or skunk pig) is a medium-sized, pig-like hoofed mammal of the family Tayassuidae (New World pigs). They are found throughout Central and South America, Trinidad in the Caribbean, and in the southwestern area of North A ...

that lived in

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

during the

Late Pleistocene The Late Pleistocene is an unofficial Age (geology), age in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, also known as Upper Pleistocene from a Stratigraphy, stratigraphic perspective. It is intended to be the fourth division of ...

Description

Fossils of ''Catagonus carlesi'' have been dated to 26,630 ± 370 years BP. It was adapted to open or semi-open and arid or semi-arid environments with scarce or absent vegetation cover. These environmental conditions favored the settlement of mammals adapted to open environments.

Taxonomy

A 2017 study on the phylogenetic systematics of Tayassuidae species suggests that ''Catagonus carlesi'' should be moved to the genus ''Parachoerus'' along with the living Chacoan peccary and ''C. bonaerensis'', with ''Catagonus'' restricted to the extinct '' C. metropolitanus''.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q108101435 Peccaries Prehistoric even-toed ungulates Pleistocene even-toed ungulates Pleistocene extinctions Prehistoric mammals of South America Pleistocene mammals of South America