Pampatheriidae ("

Pampas The Pampas (from the qu, pampa, meaning "plain") are fertile South American low grasslands that cover more than and include the Argentine provinces of Buenos Aires, La Pampa, Santa Fe, Entre Ríos, and Córdoba; all of Uruguay; and Bra ...

beasts") is an extinct family of large plantigrade

armored Armour (British English) or armor (American English; see spelling differences) is a covering used to protect an object, individual, or vehicle from physical injury or damage, especially direct contact weapons or projectiles during combat, or fr ...

armadillo Armadillos (meaning "little armored ones" in Spanish) are New World placental mammals in the order Cingulata. The Chlamyphoridae and Dasypodidae are the only surviving families in the order, which is part of the superorder Xenarthra, al ...

s related to extant

s in the order Cingulata. However, pampatheriids have existed as a separate lineage since at least the middle

Eocene The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''ēṓs'', " ...

Mustersan age, . Pampatheres evolved in

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the souther ...

during its long period of

Cenozoic The Cenozoic ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterised by the dominance of mammals, birds and flowering plants, a cooling and drying climate, and the current configu ...

isolation. Although widespread, they were less diverse and abundant than the armadillos. '' Holmesina'' spread to North America after the formation of the Isthmus of Panama as part of the Great American Interchange. They finally disappeared on both continents in the end-Pleistocene extinctions, about 12,000 years ago.

Description

Pampatheres are believed to have attained a weight of up to . Like three-banded armadillos, and unlike glyptodonts, their armored shell was given some flexibility by three movable lateral bands of scutes. The

osteoderm Osteoderms are bony deposits forming scales, plates, or other structures based in the dermis. Osteoderms are found in many groups of extant and extinct reptiles and amphibians, including lizards, crocodilians, frogs, temnospondyls (extinc ...

s (bony plates in the skin comprising the armor) of pampatheres were each covered by a single

keratin Keratin () is one of a family of structural fibrous proteins also known as ''scleroproteins''. Alpha-keratin (α-keratin) is a type of keratin found in vertebrates. It is the key structural material making up scales, hair, nails, feathers, ...

ized scute, unlike osteoderms of armadillos, which have more than one scute. Holmesina 3 Clean

A study of pampathere jaw biomechanics showed that their masticatory musculature was more powerful and more adapted for transverse movements than that of armadillos, leading to the conclusion that much of their diet was coarse vegetation. They are thought to have been primarily grazers, unlike armadillos, which are omnivorous or insectivorous. The variation between species in the expression of adaptations for grinding coarse vegetation correlates with the aridity of their habitat; such adaptations are most pronounced in '' Pampatherium typum'', which lived in the arid

, and least pronounced in ''

Holmesina occidentalis ''Holmesina'' is a genus of pampathere, an extinct group of armadillo-like creatures that were distantly related to extant armadillos. Like armadillos, and unlike the other extinct branch of megafaunal cingulates, the glyptodonts, the shell wa ...

'', which lived in humid lowlands.

References

External links

Paleodatabase

† A dagger, obelisk, or obelus is a typographical mark that usually indicates a footnote if an asterisk has already been used. The symbol is also used to indicate death (of people) or extinction (of species). It is one of the modern descendan ...

Prehistoric cingulates Oligocene first appearances Holocene extinctions Paleogene mammals of South America Neogene mammals of South America Pleistocene mammals of South America Pleistocene mammals of North America Prehistoric mammal families {{Paleo-mammal-stub