''Nuciruptor'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

New World monkey New World monkeys are the five families of primates that are found in the tropical regions of Mexico, Central and South America: Callitrichidae, Cebidae, Aotidae, Pitheciidae, and Atelidae. The five families are ranked together as the Ceboidea ( ...

s from the

Middle Miocene The Middle Miocene is a sub-epoch of the Miocene Epoch made up of two stages: the Langhian and Serravallian stages. The Middle Miocene is preceded by the Early Miocene. The sub-epoch lasted from 15.97 ± 0.05 Ma to 11.608 ± 0.005 Ma (million y ...

(

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 ...

in the

South American land mammal age The South American land mammal ages (SALMA) establish a geologic timescale for prehistoric South American fauna beginning 64.5 Mya (unit), Ma during the Paleocene and continuing through to the Late Pleistocene (0.011 Ma). These periods are referre ...

s; 13.8 to 11.8 Ma). Its remains have been found at the Konzentrat-Lagerstätte of

La Venta La Venta is a pre-Columbian archaeological site of the Olmec civilization located in the present-day Mexican state of Tabasco. Some of the artifacts have been moved to the museum "Parque - Museo de La Venta", which is in nearby Villahermosa, ...

in the Honda Group of

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 Car ...

. The

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

is ''N. rubricae''.''Nuciruptor rubricae''
in the

Paleobiology Database The Paleobiology Database is an online resource for information on the distribution and classification of fossil animals, plants, and microorganisms. History The Paleobiology Database (PBDB) originated in the NCEAS-funded Phanerozoic Marine Pale ...

Etymology

The name ''Nuciruptor rubricae'' is derived from the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

''nuci'' ("nut") and ''ruptor'' meaning "to break".Kay & Meldrum, 1997, p.409 ''Rubricae'' refers to the red beds where the fossils have been found.Kay & Meldrum, 1997, p.410

Description

A lower mandible fossil of ''Nuciruptor'' was discovered in the El Cardón redbeds of the Cerro Colorado Member of the

Villavieja Formation 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 ...

, Honda Group, just below the San Francisco Sandstone which has been dated to the

, about 12.8 ± 0.2 Ma. From the same locality, fossils of ''

Saimiri annectens ''Saimiri annectens'', originally described as ''Laventiana annectens'' and later as ''Neosaimiri annectens'', is an extinct species of New World monkey in the genus ''Saimiri'' (squirrel monkeys) from the Middle Miocene (Laventan in the South Am ...

'' were recovered.Kay & Meldrum, 1997, p.437 ''Nuciruptor'' resembles living pitheciins in having elongate, procumbent, and styliform lower

incisor Incisors (from Latin ''incidere'', "to cut") are the front teeth present in most mammals. They are located in the premaxilla above and on the mandible below. Humans have a total of eight (two on each side, top and bottom). Opossums have 18, whe ...

s with very weak lingual heels. Moreover, as in living pitheciins, the incisors are set in a procumbently oriented mandibular symphysis, and its mandibular corpus deepens appreciably under the molars. At the same time, ''Nuciruptor'' does not possess several of the distinctive synapomorphies of extant pitheciins. ''Nuciruptor'' remains more primitive than living pitheciins in that no diastema separates its lower incisors from the canine. Its lower canines retain the primitive structure in not having a sharply defined protocristid. P2 is not a robust or high-crowned tooth and does not have a metaconid. Nor are the other

premolar The premolars, also called premolar teeth, or bicuspids, are transitional teeth located between the canine and molar teeth. In humans, there are two premolars per quadrant in the permanent set of teeth, making eight premolars total in the mouth ...

s molarised by the addition of large talonids.Kay & Meldrum, 1997, p.421 The estimated weight of ''Nuciruptor'' was .Silvestro, 2017, p.14 The genus shows similarity with another fossil primate from La Venta, ''

Cebupithecia ''Cebupithecia'' is an extinct genus of New World monkeys from the Middle Miocene (Laventan in the South American land mammal ages; 13.8 to 11.8 Ma). Its remains have been found at the Konzentrat-Lagerstätte of La Venta in the Honda Group of ...

''.Defler, 2004, p.34 As ''Cebupithecia'', ''Nuciruptor'' is thought to be an ancestral saki (

Pitheciidae The Pitheciidae () are one of the five families of New World monkeys now recognised. Formerly, they were included in the family Atelidae. The family includes the titis, saki monkeys and uakaris. Most species are native to the Amazon region ...

).Takai et al., 2001, p.290Tejedor, 2013, p.28

Habitat

The Honda Group, and more precisely the "Monkey Beds", are the richest site for fossil primates in South America.Rosenberger & Hartwig, 2001, p.3 It has been argued that the monkeys of the Honda Group were living in habitat that was in contact with the

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...

and

Orinoco Basin The Orinoco Basin is the part of South America drained by the Orinoco river and its tributaries. The Orinoco watershed covers an area of about 990000 km2, making it the third largest in South America, covering most of Venezuela and eastern p ...

s, and that La Venta itself was probably seasonally dry forest.Lynch Alfaro et al., 2015, p.520

References

Bibliography

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Etymology

Description

Habitat

See also

References

Bibliography

Further reading