''Nothrotherium'' 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 medium-sized ground sloth from

South 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 ...

( Bolivia,

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

and the

Ware Formation The Ware Formation ( es, Formación Ware) is a fossiliferous geological formation of the Cocinetas Basin in the northernmost department of La Guajira. The formation consists of fine lithic to quartzitic sandstones, mudstones, pebbly conglomerate ...

La Guajira La Guajira () is a department of Colombia. It occupies most of the Guajira Peninsula in the northeast region of the country, on the Caribbean Sea and bordering Venezuela, at the northernmost tip of South America. The capital city of the departm ...

, Colombia).Amson et al., 2016, p.12 It differs from ''Nothrotheriops'' in smaller size and differences in skull and hind leg bones, but both genera can be traced back to '' Hapalops'', the genus which both evolved from in different ecological conditions.

Taxonomy

''Nothrotherium'' is derived from the Greek ''nothros'' �ωθρός meaning "lazy" or "slothful," and ''therion'' �ηρίον "beast", and the species ''N. maquinense'' is named after the Maquiné Grotto in

, where it was found. Synonyms such as ''Coelodon'' occasionally cause confusion where they occur in early texts such as that of Alfred Russel Wallace's major work, ''The Geographical Distribution of Animals'' (1876). This genus formerly included the species ''

Nothrotheriops shastensis ''Nothrotheriops'' is a genus of Pleistocene ground sloth found in North America, from what is now central Mexico to the southern United States. This genus of bear-sized xenarthran was related to the much larger, and far more famous ''Megatherium ...

'', which was later moved to ''

Nothrotheriops ''Nothrotheriops'' is a genus of Pleistocene ground sloth found in North America, from what is now central Mexico to the southern United States. This genus of bear-sized xenarthran was related to the much larger, and far more famous '' Megatheriu ...

''.

Description

Analysis of a

coprolite A coprolite (also known as a coprolith) is fossilized feces. Coprolites are classified as trace fossils as opposed to body fossils, as they give evidence for the animal's behaviour (in this case, diet) rather than morphology. The name is de ...

associated with a ''N. maquinense'' skeleton in Brazil's Gruta dos Brejoes show it to have been a browser which fed on

xerophytic A xerophyte (from Greek ξηρός ''xeros'' 'dry' + φυτόν ''phuton'' 'plant') is a species of plant that has adaptations to survive in an environment with little liquid water, such as a desert such as the Sahara or places in the Alps or t ...

leaves and fruits, and it is sometimes thought to have been an inhabitant of open, peripheral forests, possibly having a semi-arboreal lifestyle, like the contemporaneous Cuban ground sloths and '' Diabolotherium''. Plant material in the Gruta dos Brejoes coprolite yielded a date of 12,200 ± 120 yr BP.

Taxonomy

Description

References

Bibliography

Further reading