Thoatherium

Thoatherium is an extinct genus of litoptern mammals from the Early Miocene of Argentina. Fossils of the genus have been found in the Santa Cruz Formation in Argentina. With a length of 70 centimetres (2.3 ft), the gazelle-like Thoatherium was a small representative of the order Litopterna. Judging from its long legs, it was a fast runner. Thoatherium had remarkably reduced toes; only one horse-like hoof remained. Thoatherium even lacked splint bones, which are remnants of the second and fourth toe found in modern horses. Judging from its generalised, brachydont teeth, Thoatherium fed on soft leaves rather than on tough grasses.

Thoatherium

Internet Archive Book Images · No restrictions · 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
ProterotheriidaePBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Litopterna
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Eutheria
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At least 320 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 16.3 Mya to 15.98 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 20.45 Mya to 13.82 Mya.

Miocene — about 19 of 19 occurrencesMiocene21–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 2 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 3 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 3 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 3 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 3 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 1 occurrence16–16 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences15–15 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences15–15 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences15–15 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences16.3 Mya – 15.98 Mya20.9 Mya13.3 Mya

19 occurrences of Thoatherium 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

19 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

4 formations

Santa Cruz — 51.20°S, 69.12°WSanta Cruz — 50.16°S, 69.67°WSanta Cruz — 51.57°S, 69.47°WSanta Cruz — 50.60°S, 69.08°WSanta Cruz — 50.95°S, 69.20°WSanta Cruz — 51.35°S, 69.00°WSanta Cruz — 50.32°S, 72.10°WSanta Cruz — 50.28°S, 70.28°WSanta Cruz — 51.57°S, 69.42°WGalera — 46.90°S, 72.30°WNazareno — 21.67°S, 65.58°WCerro Boleadoras — 47.00°S, 71.62°W

Loading coastlines…

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

Thoatherium and its relatives

Miocene

Where Thoatherium and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

202 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 16 sites for Thoatherium, 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

10 references

Each of the 19 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 content1

Picture of Thoatherium

Credit
Internet Archive Book Images
Licence
No restrictions
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Thoatherium was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

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 itProterotheriidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Ameghino 1887