''Pachyarmatherium'' is a genus of extinct large armadillo-like cingulates found in

North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north ...

and

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 ...

from the

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58Pleistocene 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 ...

epochs, related to the extant armadillos and the extinct pampatheres and

glyptodonts Glyptodonts are an extinct subfamily of large, heavily armoured armadillos. They arose in South America around 48 million years ago and spread to southern North America after the continents became connected several million years ago. The best-k ...

. It was present from 4.9 Mya to 11,000 years ago, existing for approximately .

Taxonomy

''Pachyarmatherium'' was named by Downing and White (1995). Its type is ''P. leiseyi''. It was assigned to Dasypodoidea by Downing and White (1995), and tentatively to Glyptodontidae by McKenna and Bell (1997). A

cladistic Cladistics (; ) is an approach to biological classification in which organisms are categorized in groups ("clades") based on hypotheses of most recent common ancestry. The evidence for hypothesized relationships is typically shared derived char ...

analysis performed by de O. Porpino et al. (2009) led to the conclusion that ''Pachyarmatherium'' is a sister group to a clade consisting of Glyptodontidae and

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 ...

. Oliveira et al. (2013) suggest that ''Pachyarmatherium'' is a possible dasypodid.

Fossil distribution of ''Pachyarmatherium''

''P. leiseyi''

* Kissimmee River site, Tamiami Formation, Okeechobee County, Florida ~4.9—1.8 Mya. * Haile 16A Site, Alachua County, Florida ~1.8 Mya.—300,000 years ago. * Payne Creek Mine, Polk County, Florida ~1.8 Mya—300,000 years ago. * Leisey Shell Pit 1A, Bermont Formation, Hillsborough County, Florida ~1.8—300,000 years ago.

''P. tenebris''

* Zumbador Cave (= Cueva del Zumbador) - Capadare Formation, Falcón, Venezuela, Pleistocene * Cueva El Miedo (= Cave Fear), Capadare Formation,

Lujanian The Lujanian age is a South American land mammal age within the Pleistocene and Holocene epochs of the Neogene, from 0.8–0.011 Ma or 800–11 tya. It follows the Ensenadan. The age is usually divided into the middle Pleistocene Bonaerian stag ...

, Falcón, Venezuela, ~800,000-11,000 BP

''P. brasiliense''

Lajedo de Escada, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, Late Pleistocene, 100,000 years BP

Taxonomy

Fossil distribution of ''Pachyarmatherium''

''P. leiseyi''

''P. tenebris''

''P. brasiliense''

References

Further reading