Homalodotherium

Homalodotherium is an extinct genus of South American native ungulates in the order Notoungulata. Fossils of Homalodotherium have been found in the Middle Miocene Santa Cruz Formation of Argentina and the Río Frías Formation of Chile. The first specimen, a partial skull, was discovered by Robert Holiver Cunningham while on an expedition to Patagonia. By the time it had arrived in England, it was degraded to the point where only a few elements remained. Regardless, in 1870, it was given its genus name by Thomas Henry Huxley, and its species name by William Henry Flower. The name was misspelled repeatedly over the years, leading to the erection of the family Homalodontotheriidae to include it, though this has since been amended to Homalodotheriidae. Since, then four more species of Homalodotherium have been named.

Homalodotherium

Jonathan Chen · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
HomalodotheriidaePBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Notoungulata
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Eutheria
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At most 5 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 20.45 Mya and 15.5 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Miocene — about 14 of 14 occurrencesMiocene21–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 1 occurrence17–17 Mya — about 2 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 2 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 2 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 2 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 2 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 1 occurrence16–16 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20.9 Mya15 Mya

14 occurrences of Homalodotherium on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

14 occurrences

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

3 formations

Santa Cruz — 51.20°S, 69.12°WSanta Cruz — 50.00°S, 70.00°WSanta Cruz — 50.75°S, 69.18°WSanta Cruz — 47.52°S, 71.90°WSanta Cruz — 47.58°S, 71.85°WSanta Cruz — 50.28°S, 70.28°WSanta Cruz — 50.21°S, 69.72°WSanta Cruz — 50.55°S, 69.22°WSanta Cruz — 51.57°S, 68.95°WSanta Cruz — 50.35°S, 68.97°WGalera — 46.90°S, 72.30°WRío Frías — 44.58°S, 71.23°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Homalodotherium has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Homalodotherium and its relatives

Miocene

Where Homalodotherium and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

162 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 13 sites for Homalodotherium, 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

9 references

Each of the 14 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. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Homalodotherium

Credit
Jonathan Chen
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Laser scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Homalodotherium cunninghami · fmnh:pm:59291

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 itHomalodotheriidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Huxley 1870