Prepotherium

Prepotherium is an extinct genus of Prepotheriina ground sloths that lived during the Miocene period. Fossils of Prepotherium have been found in the Collón Curá and Santa Cruz Formations of Argentina.[1]

Prepotherium
Temporal range: Early-Mid Miocene (Santacrucian-Mayoan)
~17.5–11.6 Ma
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Chordata
Class:
Mammalia
Superorder:
Xenarthra
Order:
Pilosa
Family:
†Megatheriidae
Subfamily:
†Megatheriinae
Tribe:
†Megatheriini
Subtribe:
†Prepotheriina
Genus:
Prepotherium

Ameghino, 1891
Species
  • P. filholi
  • P. moyani
  • P. potens Ameghino 1891

Prepotherium differed from Megatherium by being smaller and having a less exaggeratedly convex inferior border of the lower jaw.[2]

Redefined species

An additional species from Venezuela, P. venezuelanum, was named by R. Collins in 1935.[3] from fossils found in the Portuguesa state and additional remains from the Acre state in Brazil.[4] However, this species was later reclassified in its own genus, Pseudoprepotherium, as a basal member of another family of ground sloths, the Mylodontidae.[5][6]

References
  1. Prepotherium at Fossilworks.org
  2. A History of Land Mammals in the Western Hemisphere, by William Berryman Scott
  3. Collins, R.L., 1934. Venezuelan Tertiary Mammals. Johns Hopkins University Studies in Geology (11), 23-244.
  4. M. A. Cozzuol. 2006. The Acre vertebrate fauna: Age, diversity, and geography. Journal of South American Earth Sciences 21:185-203
  5. Hirschfeld SE. 1985. Ground sloths from the Friasian La Venta Fauna, with additions to the pre-Friasian Coyaima Fauna of Colombia, South America. University of California Publications, Geological Sciences 128: 1–91.
  6. Marcelo R. Sánchez-Villagra, Orangel A. Aguilera, Alfredo A. Carlini. The fossil vertebrate record of Venezuela. In Marcelo R. Sánchez-Villagra, Orangel A. Aguilera, and Alfredo A. Carlini, Urumaco and Venezuelan Paleontology The Fossil Record of the Northern Neotropics. 2010 Publisher: Indiana University Press, p. 26
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