Notoungulata
Notoungulata is an extinct order of ungulates that inhabited South America from the early Paleocene to the end of the Pleistocene, living from approximately 61 million to 11,000 years ago. Notoungulates were morphologically diverse, with forms resembling animals as disparate as rabbits and rhinoceroses. Notoungulata are the largest group of South American native ungulates, with over 150 genera in 14 families having been described, divided into two major subgroupings, Typotheria and Toxodontia. Notoungulates first diversified during the Eocene. Their diversity declined from the late Neogene onwards, with only the large toxodontids persisting until the end of the Pleistocene, perishing as part of the Late Pleistocene megafauna extinctions along with most other large mammals across the Americas. Collagen sequence analysis suggests that notoungulates are closely related to litopterns, another group of South American ungulates, and their closest living relatives being perissodactyls, including rhinoceroses, tapirs and equines as part of the clade Panperissodactyla. However their relationships to other South American ungulates are uncertain. Several groups of notoungulates separately evolved ever-growing cheek teeth.
WereSpielChequers · 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- Also called
- notoungulatePBDB
- Sits inside
- SudamericungulataPBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB
- Life habit
- scansorialPBDB, for Eutheria
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At least 61 million years on record.
The record covers at least 61.66 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 66 Mya to 0 Mya.
2,019 occurrences of Notoungulata 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
2,019 occurrencesThese 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
150 formations
- Sarmiento Formation358
- Santa Cruz Formation210
- Cerro Azul Formation91
- Monte Hermoso Formation44
- Las Flores Formation · Río Chico Group30
- Abanico Formation28
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The named rock units Notoungulata has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 126 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 510 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Notoungulata and its relatives
MioceneWhere Notoungulata and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
1,923 taxa- Toxodon23 sites
- Archaeopithecus rogeri18 sites
- Notopithecus adapinus17 sites
- Dasypodidae16 sites
- Toxodontidae16 sites
- Notostylops15 sites
- Antepithecus brachystephanus14 sites
- Henricosbornia lophodonta14 sites
- Notostylops murinus14 sites
- Pleurostylodon modicus13 sites
- Smilodon populator13 sites
- Trigonostylops wortmani13 sites
- Borhyaenidae12 sites
- Glyptodon12 sites
- Gomphotheriidae12 sites
- Testudines12 sites
- Equus11 sites
- Eremotherium laurillardi11 sites
- Macrauchenia patagonica11 sites
- Notiomastodon platensis11 sites
- Notopithecus11 sites
- Oldfieldthomasia debilitata11 sites
- Pleurostylodon similis11 sites
- Proterotheriidae11 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 629 sites for Notoungulata, and this reads 240 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
419 references- The beginning of the age of mammals in South America. Part II162
- Biostratigraphy of the Casamayoran, Early Eocene of Patagonia124
- Paleobiology of Santacrucian native ungulates (Meridiungulata: Astrapotheria, Litoptera and Notoungulata)59
- The beginning of the age of mammals in South America. Part I47
- Updated knowledge on the Notoungulata (Mammalia) from the late Miocene Cerro Azul Formation, La Pampa Province, Argentina42
- Bioestratigrafía de la Formación Santa Cruz (Mioceno Inferior) en el extremo sudeste de la Patagonia40
- Vertebrate paleontology, geology, and geochronology of the Tapera de López and Scarritt Pocket, Chubut Province, Argentina38
- Rodent-like notoungulates (Typotheria) from Gran Barranca, Chubut Province, Argentina: phylogeny and systematics36
- Notoungulata and Astrapotheria (Mammalia, Meridiungulata) of the Santa Cruz Formation (Early-Middle Miocene) Along the Río Santa Cruz, Argentine Patagonia30
- Georeferencing fossiliferous localities from Solimões and Acre Basins (Brazil) -what we know so far about Solimões Formation and future perspectives29
- Biostratigraphy and biochronology of the Monte Hermoso Formation (early Pliocene) at its type locality, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina27
- The Interatheriinae from the Late Oligocene of Mendoza (Argentina), with comments on some Deseadan Interatheriidae24
Each of the 2,019 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. 407 further references are not listed. 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 Notoungulata
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- WereSpielChequers
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
Photogrammetry
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Notoungulata sp. · AMNH:FM:29575
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 itSudamericungulata through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Roth 1903)