Dolichotis salinicola
The Chacoan mara or Chacoan cavy is a relatively large South American rodent of the cavy family. They are a close relative of the better known Patagonian mara. The Chacoan mara is the sole member of the genus Dolichotis.

Николай Усик / http://paradoxusik.livejournal.com/ · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- DolichotisPBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB, for Caviidae
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB, for Caviidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At most 1.9 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 3.6 Mya and 1.75 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
2 occurrences of Dolichotis salinicola on record, most of them in the Pliocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
2 occurrences- Pliocene67%
- Pleistocene33%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
1 formation
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The named rock units Dolichotis salinicola has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Dolichotis salinicola and its relatives
PlioceneWhere Dolichotis salinicola and its relatives were recorded in the Pliocene.
Found in the same rock
31 taxa- Abalosia castellanosi2 sites
- Abrocoma2 sites
- Ctenomys chapalmalensis2 sites
- Eucelophorus chapalmalensis2 sites
- Eumysops2 sites
- Neuryurus2 sites
- Pithanotomys2 sites
- Abrothrix magnus1 site
- Akodon lorenzinii1 site
- Camelidae1 site
- Chaetophractus villosus1 site
- Cholomys pearsoni1 site
- Dusicyon1 site
- Eutatus seguini1 site
- Hippidion devillei1 site
- Lestodelphys1 site
- Megatherium1 site
- Mesotherium cristatum1 site
- Microcavia1 site
- Microtragulus reigi1 site
- Neochoerus1 site
- Paedotherium bonaerense1 site
- Palaeocavia1 site
- Pampatherium1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Dolichotis salinicola, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
2 references- Advances in the understanding of Neogene mammalian fauna in the Pampean region (central Argentina) through revising “biozone” hypotheses based on new dates and biochronological analyses1
- The caviomorph rodents from the San Andrés Formation, east-central Argentina, and global Late Pliocene climatic change1
Each of the 2 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Dolichotis salinicola
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Николай Усик / http://paradoxusik.livejournal.com/
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Dolichotis salinicola · ummz:mammals:125578
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itDolichotis through timeFormations of the PlioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Burmeister 1876