''Paulogervaisia'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

mammal A mammal () is a vertebrate animal of the Class (biology), class Mammalia (). Mammals are characterised by the presence of milk-producing mammary glands for feeding their young, a broad neocortex region of the brain, fur or hair, and three ...

, belonging to the family

Didolodontidae Didolodontidae is a possibly paraphyletic family of "condylarth" mammals known from the Paleogene of South America, with most specimens known from Argentina. They were generally small-medium in body size, and had a bunodont dentition. A close rel ...

. Its fossilized remains have been found in

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

Description

This genus is known only from fossilized teeth, and it is therefore impossible to reconstruct exactly its appearance. Compared with the remains of better known forms, such as his relative '' Didolodus'', it can be inferred that ''Paulogervaisia'' could reach one meter in length. ''Paulogervaisia'' is characterized by a third upper molar as wide than the second, and by a metaconus in a more lingual position than the paracone. The mesostyle was smaller than in ''Didolodus''. The third lower molar had an entoconid as large than the hypoconulid.

Classification

''Paulogervaisia'' is a member of the Didolodontidae, a mysterious clade of south american mammals from the early

Cenozoic The Cenozoic Era ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterized by the dominance of mammals, insects, birds and angiosperms (flowering plants). It is the latest of three g ...

, whose exact relationships are not well known. The type species is ''Paulogervaisia inusta'', described by

Florentino Ameghino Florentino Ameghino (born Giovanni Battista Fiorino Giuseppe Ameghino; September 19, 1853 – August 6, 1911) was an Argentine naturalist, paleontologist, anthropologist and zoologist, whose fossil discoveries on the Argentine Pampas, especial ...

in 1901, based on fossilized remains from the

Chubut Province Chubut ( from Tehuelche language, Tehuelche 'transparent'; ) is a provinces of Argentina, province in southern Argentina, situated between the 42nd parallel south (the border with Río Negro Province), the 46th parallel south (bordering Santa ...

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

, in

Patagonia Patagonia () is a geographical region that includes parts of Argentina and Chile at the southern end of South America. The region includes the southern section of the Andes mountain chain with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and glaciers ...

. Ameghino described two other species from the same formation ; ''Lambdaconus mamma'' and ''L. porca'', now considered as part of ''Paulogervaisia'', and the later as a synonym of the type species. Ameghino believed that ''Paulogervaisia'' was an archaic member of the

Proboscidean Proboscidea (; , ) is a taxonomic order of afrotherian mammals containing one living family (Elephantidae) and several extinct families. First described by J. Illiger in 1811, it encompasses the elephants and their close relatives. Three liv ...

s, a sort of link between this group and the so-called "

condylarths Condylarthra is an informal group – previously considered an order – of extinct placental mammals, known primarily from the Paleocene and Eocene epochs. They are considered early, primitive ungulates and is now largely considered to be a wast ...

". It was

George Gaylord Simpson George Gaylord Simpson (June 16, 1902 – October 6, 1984) was an American paleontologist. Simpson was perhaps the most influential paleontologist of the twentieth century, and a major participant in the modern synthesis, contributing '' Tempo ...

who recognized it as didolodontid in 1948.*G. G. Simpson. 1948. The beginning of the age of mammals in South America. Part I. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 91:1-232

Bibliography

*C. d. Paula Couto. 1952. Fossil mammals from the beginning of the Cenozoic in Brazil. Condylarthra, Litopterna, Xenungulata, and Astrapotheria. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 99(6):355-394 *R. Cifelli. 1983. The origin and affinities of the South American Condylarthra and early Tertiary Litopterna (Mammalia). American Museum Novitates 2772:1-49 *J. N. Gelfo. 2010. The "condylarth" Didolodontidae from Gran Barranca: history of the bunodont South American mammals until the Eocene-Oligocene transition. In R. H. Madden, A. A. *Carlini, M. G. Vucetich, R. F. Kay (eds.), The Paleontology of Gran Barranca: Evolution and Environmental Change through the Middle Cenozoic of Patagonia 130-142 Didolodontids Eocene mammals of South America Paleogene Argentina Fossils of Argentina Fossil taxa described in 1901 Taxa named by Florentino Ameghino Prehistoric placental genera Golfo San Jorge Basin Sarmiento Formation {{paleo-mammal-stub