Glyptotherium

Glyptotherium is an extinct genus of glyptodont, a group of extinct mammals related to the armadillos living from the Middle to Late Pleistocene, approximately 1.8 million to 12,000 years ago (AEO). The genus is considered an example of North American megafauna, of which most have become extinct. Glyptotherium may have been wiped out by changing climate or human interference.

Glyptotherium
Temporal range: Mid-Late Pleistocene (Blancan-Rancholabrean)
~1.8–0.012 Ma
↓
G. arizonae
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Cingulata
Family: Chlamyphoridae
Subfamily: †Glyptodontinae
Genus: †Glyptotherium
Osborn 1903
Type species
†Glyptotherium texanum
Osborn 1903
Species
  • †G. cylindricum Brown 1912[1]
  • †G. texanum Osborn 1903[2]
Synonyms
  • Boreostracon Simpson 1929
  • Brachyostracon Brown 1912
  • Xenoglyptodon Meade 1953

Description

Like its living relative, the armadillo, Glyptotherium had a shell which covered its entire body, similar to a turtle. However, unlike the carapace of a turtle, the Glyptotherium shell was made up of hundreds of small hexagonal scales. Some species grew up to 6 feet (1.8 m) long and its armor may have weighed up to a ton.

Paleoecology

Remains of Glyptotherium species have been found in tropical and subtropical regions of Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Mexico, and the southern United States; from Florida and South Carolina to Arizona.[3] There is no direct evidence of humans preying on this North American glyptodont. Smilodon may have occasionally preyed upon Glyptotherium, based on a skull from one Glyptotherium fossil recovered from Pleistocene deposits in Arizona bearing the distinctive elliptical puncture marks that best match those of the machairodont cat, indicating that the predator successfully risked biting into bone to kill the armored herbivore, the only option for a predator intent on hunting such heavily armored animals.[4] The Glyptotherium in question was a juvenile, with a still-developing head shield, making it far more vulnerable to the cat's attack.[5] Glyptotherium was named by Osborn in 1903, assigned to Glyptodontinae by Downing and White in 1995 and to Glyptodontidae by Osborn (1903), Brown (1912), Carroll (1988), Cisneros (2005) and Mead et al. (2007).

  • Restoration
  • Juvenile G. texanum skull, possibly attacked by a Smilodon[5]

See also

References
  1. Glyptotherium cylindricum at Fossilworks.org
  2. Glyptotherium texanum at Fossilworks.org
  3. "Glyptotherium Osborn 1903". Paleobiology Database. Retrieved 2014-09-09.
  4. Antón, Mauricio (2013). Sabertooth. Bloomington, Indiana: University of Indiana Press. pp. 203–204. ISBN 9780253010421.
  5. Gillette, D. D. (Spring 2010). "Glyptodonts in Arizona". Arizona Geology. Arizona Geological Survey. Retrieved 2018-08-17.

Further reading


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