''Paranauchenia'' is an extinct

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 ...

of South American

litoptern Litopterna (from "smooth heel") is an extinct order of South American native ungulates that lived from the Paleocene to the Pleistocene-Holocene around 62.5 million to 12,000 years ago (or possibly as late as 3,500 years ago), and were also pres ...

s belonging to the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Macraucheniidae Macraucheniidae is a family in the extinct South American ungulate order Litopterna, that resembled camelids. They had three functional digits on the fore and hind feet, as well as elongate necks. The family is generally divided up into two sub ...

. It is known only from fossil finds in

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 ...

. It possessed three toes and long limbs. The species ''Paranauchenia denticulata'' lived in the

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...

epoch in

.Ameghino, F. 1904a. Nuevas especies de mamíferos Cretáceos y Terciarios de la República Argentina. ''Anales de la Sociedad Científica Argentina'' 16: 193-208; 17: 162-175, 182-192, 225-240, 241-291. Fossils have been found in the Arroyo Chasicó and

Ituzaingó Formation The Ituzaingó Formation (), in older literature also described as Entre Ríos or Entrerriana Formation, is an extensive formation (geology), geological formation of Late Miocene (Tortonian, or Huayquerian in the South American land mammal age, SA ...

s of Argentina.''Paranauchenia''
at

Fossilworks Fossilworks was a portal which provides query, download, and analysis tools to facilitate access to the Paleobiology Database, a large relational database assembled by hundreds of paleontologists from around the world. History Fossilworks was cr ...

.org

Classification

Cladogram A cladogram (from Greek language, Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an Phylogenetic tree, evolutionary tree because it does not s ...

based in the

phylogenetic analysis In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical data ...

published by Schmidt ''et al''., 2014, showing the position of ''Paranauchenia'':

References

Macraucheniids Miocene genus extinctions Miocene mammals of South America Huayquerian Neogene Argentina Fossils of Argentina Ituzaingó Formation Fossil taxa described in 1904 Taxa named by Florentino Ameghino Prehistoric placental genera {{paleo-mammal-stub