''Kraglievichia'' is an extinct

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

of cingulate belonging to the family

Pampatheriidae Pampatheriidae ("Pampas beasts") is an extinct family of large plantigrade armored armadillos related to extant armadillos in the order Cingulata. However, pampatheriids have existed as a separate lineage since at least the middle Eocene Muste ...

. It lived from the Late

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), 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 mea ...

to the Early

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

Description

This animal looked like an enormous armadillo, with body dimensions comparable or larger than the modern giant armadillo ; its skull was 18 centimeters long. As for all its relatives, the pampatheres, the structure of the armor of ''Kraglievichia'' forbade it to curl up, as most modern armadillos does. The genus was characterized by the presence of four upper teeth and three lower teeth with an oval section, a characteristic differentiating it from the very similar but smaller ''

Vassallia ''Vassallia'' is an extinct genus of cingulate belonging to the family Pampatheriidae. It lived between the Middle Oligocene and the Early Pliocene in what is now South America. Description This animal must have been very similar in shape a ...

''. The osteoderms of its carapace had an elevated axial area, underlined by two lateral longitudinal depressions.

Classification

The genus ''Kraglievichia'' was established in 1927 by Castellanos, for a species of fossil cingulate first described in 1883 by

Florentino Ameghino Florentino Ameghino (born Giovanni Battista Fiorino Giuseppe Ameghino September 19, 1853 – August 6, 1911) was an Argentine naturalist, paleontologist, anthropologist and zoologist, whose fossil discoveries on the Argentine Pampas, especially ...

. The type species, ''Kraglievichia paranense'', is documented in the fossil records 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 ...

and

Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

. Some isolated osteoderms, with a morphology similar to those of ''Kraglievichia'', but also to those of '' Pampatherium'', have been described by Castellanos under the name ''Plaina intermedia''. It is however probable that those fossils should in fact be attributed to the genus ''Kraglievichia''. ''Kraglievichia'' was a member of the family

, a clade of cingulates very similar to modern armadillos, and closely related to them. ''Kraglievichia'' was a rather derived member of this group, potentially ancestral to the large

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in ...

genera ''

Holmesina ''Holmesina'' is a genus of pampathere, an extinct group of armadillo-like creatures that were distantly related to extant armadillos. Like armadillos, and unlike the other extinct branch of megafaunal cingulates, the glyptodonts, the shell wa ...

'' and '' Pampatherium''.

Bibliography

*Castellanos, A. (1927). Breves notas sobre los clamidoterios. Publ. Cent. Est. Ing. Rosario 1–8, Argentina. *A. L. Cione, M. M. Azpelicueta, M. Bond, A. A. Carlini, J. R. Casciotta, M. A. Cozzuol, M. Fuente, Z. Gasparini, F. J. Goin, J. Noriega, G. J. Scillato-Yane, L. Soibelzon, E. P. Tonni, D. Verzi, and M. G. Vucetich. 2000. Miocene vertebrates from Entre Rios province, eastern Argentina. Serie Correlacion Geologica 14:191-237 *S. F. Vizcaino, A. Rinderknecht, and A. Czerwonogora. 2003. An Enigmatic Cingulata (Mammalia: Xenarthra) from the Late Miocene of Uruguay. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 23(4):981-983 *G. J. Scillato-Yané, F. Góis, A. E. Zurita, A. A. Carlini, L. R. González-Ruiz, C. M. Krmpotic, C. Oliva and M. Zamorano. 2013. Los cingulata (Mammalia, Xenarthra) del "Conglomerado Osífero" (Mioceno tardío) de la Formación Ituzaingó de Entre Ríos, Argentina. In D. Brandoni, J.I. Noriega (eds.), El Neógeno de la Mesopotamia argentina 14:118-134 *R. L. Tomassini, C. I. Montalvo, C.M. Deschamps and T. Manera. 2013. Biostratigraphy and biochronology of the Monte Hermoso Formation (early Pliocene) at its type locality, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. Journal of South American Earth Sciences 48:31-42 {{Taxonbar, from=Q60978079 Prehistoric cingulates Prehistoric placental genera Miocene xenarthrans Miocene genus first appearances Miocene mammals of South America Pliocene mammals of South America Pliocene xenarthrans Pliocene genus extinctions Neogene Argentina Fossils of Argentina Fossils of Uruguay Neogene Uruguay Ituzaingó Formation Fossil taxa described in 1927