Platygonus

Taxobox
name = "Platygonus"

---

image_width = 240px
status = fossil
fossil_range = Pliocene to Late Pleistocene
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Mammalia
ordo = Artiodactyla
familia = Tayassuidae
genus = "Platygonus"
genus_authority = Le Conte, 1848
subdivision_ranks = Species
subdivision =
* "P. compressus" (type)
* "P. bicalcaratus"
* "P. brachirostris"
* "P. oregonensis"
* "P. pearcei"
* "P. vetus"

"Platygonus" is an extinct genus of peccary.

"Platygonus" was 1 m (3 ft, 4 in) long (larger than modern peccaries) and had long legs, allowing it to run well. It also had a pig-like snout and long, carnivore-like tusks which were probably used to fend off predators. "Platygonus"'s digestive system was very complex, more similar to that of a ruminant.

Platygonus was a animal and, like modern peccaries, traveled in packs. It ranged from southern Canada to Mexico and from California to Pennsylvania. Stratigraphically, it occurs throughout the Pleistocene (Calabrian), and as early as the Blancan in the Gelasian of the Pliocene.

References

* Wagner, George (1903) "Observations on Platygonus Compressus Leconte" "The Journal of Geology" University of Chicago. Dept. of Geology and Paleontology, University of Chicago Press. Journals Division, 11: pp. 777-782;
* Hoare, Richard D. et al. (May 1964) "Pleistocene Peccary Platygonus Compressus Leconte from Sandusky County, Ohio" "The Ohio Journal of Science" 64(3): pp. 207-214;
* Ray, Clayton E.; Denny, Charles S. and Rubin, Meyer (January 1970) "A peccary, Platygonus Compressus LeConte, from drift of Wisconsian age in Northern Pennsylvania" "The American Journal of Science" Yale University 268: pp.78-94;
* Wilson, Ronald C.; Guilday, John E. and Branstetter, John A. (October 1975) "Extinct Peccary (Platygonus compressus LeConte) From a Central Kentucky Cave" "The NSS Bulletin" 37(4): pp. 83-87;
* Kurtén, Björn; and Anderson, Elaine (1980) "Pleistocene Mammals of North America" Columbia University Press, New York ISBN 0-231-03733-3 ;
* Murray, Lyndon K. et al. (September 2005) "Late Pleistocene Fauna from the Southern Colorado Plateau, Navajo County, Arizona" "The Southwestern Naturalist" 50(3): pp. 363–374;