''Paranauchenia'' 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 South American

litoptern Litopterna (from grc, λῑτή πτέρνα "smooth heel") is an extinct order of fossil hoofed mammals from the Cenozoic era. The order is one of the five great orders of South American ungulates that were endemic to the continent, until th ...

s belonging to the

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

Macraucheniidae Macraucheniidae is a family in the extinct South American ungulate order Litopterna, that resembled various camelids. The reduced nasal bones of their skulls was originally suggested to have housed a small proboscis, similar to that of the sai ...

. It is known only from fossil finds 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 ...

. It possessed three toes and long limbs. The species ''Paranauchenia denticulata'' lived in the

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 ...

epoch in

.Ameghino, F. 1904a. Nuevas especies de mamíferos Cretáceos y Terciarios de la República Argentina. ''Anales de la Sociedad Científica Argentina'' 16: 193-208; 17: 162-175, 182-192, 225-240, 241-291. Fossils have been found in the Arroyo Chasicó and

Ituzaingó Formation The Ituzaingó Formation ( es, Formación Ituzaingó), in older literature also described as Entre Ríos or Entrerriana Formation, is an extensive geological formation of Late Miocene (Tortonian, or Huayquerian in the SALMA classification) age i ...

s of Argentina.''Paranauchenia''
at Fossilworks.org

Classification

Cladogram A cladogram (from Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an evolutionary tree because it does not show how ancestors are related to ...

based in the

phylogenetic analysis In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...

published by Schmidt ''et al''., 2014, showing the position of ''Paranauchenia'':

References

Macraucheniids Miocene genus extinctions Miocene mammals of South America Huayquerian Neogene Argentina Fossils of Argentina Ituzaingó Formation Fossil taxa described in 1904 Taxa named by Florentino Ameghino Prehistoric placental genera {{paleo-mammal-stub