Xenorhinotherium

Taxobox
name = "Xenorhinotherium"
status = Fossil
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Mammalia
ordo = †Litopterna
familia = †Macraucheniidae
genus = †"Xenorhinotherium"
species = †"X. bahiensis"
binomial = "Xenorhinotherium bahiensis"
binomial_authority = Owen, 1838

"Xenorhinotherium" ("Xenorhinotherium bahiensis"), a Brazilian species in the Macraucheniidae family, was related to "Macrauchenia patachonica" of Patagonia.

Name

Some authors place "X. bahiensis" in the genus "Macrauchenia", while still others consider it the same species as "M. patachonica". "Xenorhinotherium bahiensis" is the only macraucheniid to be found in Brazil. The name "Xenorhinotherium" means "Strange-Nosed Beast" and "bahiensis" refers to the Brazilian state of Bahia, where it was found.

Characteristics

Like other macraucheniids, it had a small proboscis, or trunk. "Xenorhinotherium" had three-toed feet like its relatives did. It also had other features atypical of most mammals, which has made it difficult for paleontologists to envision what this animal would have looked like. This animal was an herbivore and could measure up to five meters in length, making this animal approximately three meters in height.

Era and Location

"Xenorhinotherium" lived during the Pleistocene Epoch and went extinct about fifty-two thousand years ago. If "Xenorhinotherium" is not the same as "Macrauchenia", then "Xenorhinotherium" would have been the last species of the family Macraucheniidae [http://216.109.125.130/search/cache?p=xenorhinotherium&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-501&u=www.redespeleo.org/artigos.php%3FID%3D32&w=xenorhinotherium&d=T82zp-xsN_6d&icp=1&.intl=us] . It is also noted that "Xenorhinotherium" was restricted to intertropical Brazil and that due to an anatomical analysis revealing differences in the skull, the "Xenorhinotherium" and "Macrauchenia" were not the same. Rather than a connection with "Macrauchenia", a connection with "Macraucheniopsis ensenadensis" is more present. [http://216.109.125.130/search/cache?p=xenorhinotherium&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-501&u=acd.ufrj.br/geologia/posgrad/area2_d.htm&w=xenorhinotherium&d=D1CicBIeORdR&icp=1&.intl=us%0A]

References