''Megalenhydris barbaricina'' is a

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 ...

giant otter from

Sardinia Sardinia ( ; it, Sardegna, label=Italian, Corsican and Tabarchino ; sc, Sardigna , sdc, Sardhigna; french: Sardaigne; sdn, Saldigna; ca, Sardenya, label=Algherese and Catalan) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after ...

. It is known from a single

skeleton A skeleton is the structural frame that supports the body of an animal. There are several types of skeletons, including the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside ...

, discovered in the ''

Grotta di Ispinigoli The Grotta di Ispinigoli is a karst cave in the Supramonte range, near Dorgali, Sardinia, Italy. Overview One of the largest caves on the island, it contains the tallest column, the tallest in Europe and one of the tallest in the world, measuring ...

'' near

Dorgali Dorgali ( sc, Durgali) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Nuoro in the Italian region Sardinia, located about northeast of Cagliari and about east of Nuoro in the Seaside Supramonte mountain area. Economy is mostly based on th ...

, and was described in 1987. The species is one of four extinct otter species from Sardinia and Corsica. The others are '' Algarolutra majori'', ''

Lutra castiglionis ''Lutra castiglionis'', the Castiglione otter or Corsican otter, is an extinct species of otter that was endemic to Corsica during the Pleistocene. Taxonomy ''Lutra castiglionis'' was described in 2000, originally under a new genus, ''Cyrnolut ...

''Pereira, E., and M. Salotti. "Cyrnolutra castiglionis, a new otter (Mustelidae, Lutrinae) from the Middle Pleistocene'Castiglione 3CG'deposit (Oletta, Corsica)." Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences, Séries IIA 331.1 (2000): 45-52

/ref> and '' Sardolutra, Sardolutra ichnusae''. This otter was large, possibly even larger than the extant ''

Pteronura The giant otter or giant river otter (''Pteronura brasiliensis'') is a South American carnivorous mammal. It is the longest member of the weasel family, Mustelidae, a globally successful group of predators, reaching up to . Atypical of mustel ...

'', which can reach two meters in length. The structure of the teeth points to a diet of

shellfish Shellfish is a colloquial and fisheries term for exoskeleton-bearing aquatic invertebrates used as food, including various species of molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms. Although most kinds of shellfish are harvested from saltwater envir ...

and/or

crustaceans Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group ...

. A special characteristic of the species is the flattening of the first few caudal vertebrae (the remainder of the caudal vertebrae are not known). This might point to a slightly flattened tail.

References

External links

* * Prehistoric monotypic mammal genera Otters Pleistocene carnivorans Prehistoric mustelids Pleistocene mammals of Europe Fossil taxa described in 1987 Prehistoric carnivoran genera {{Paleo-carnivora-stub