''Satherium piscinarium'' is an extinct species of giant otter of North America that lived during the

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the '' Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed ...

from ~3.7–1.6 Ma. ( AEO). existing for approximately . ''Satherium piscinarium'' is stated to be related to the

giant otter The giant otter or giant river otter (''Pteronura brasiliensis'') is a South American carnivorous mammal. It is the longest member of the weasel family, Mustelidae, a globally successful group of predators, reaching up to . Atypical of musteli ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

and

Suriname Suriname (; srn, Sranankondre or ), officially the Republic of Suriname ( nl, Republiek Suriname , srn, Ripolik fu Sranan), is a country on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north ...

. Fossil specimens have been found across the United States, from

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

in the northwest to

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, a ...

in the southeast.

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and W ...

has yielded the largest number of collections of ''S. piscinarium''.

Taxonomy

''Satherium piscinarium'' was originally named ''Lutra piscinaria'' by

Joseph Leidy Joseph Mellick Leidy (September 9, 1823 – April 30, 1891) was an American paleontologist, parasitologist and anatomist. Leidy was professor of anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania, later was a professor of natural history at Swarthmore ...

in 1873. In 1937, it was recombined as ''Satherium piscinarium'' by Barbour and Schultz. Recombination again by Bjork in 1973, Kurten and Anderson in 1980,B. Kurten and E. Anderson (1980) ''Pleistocene mammals of North America'', Columbia University Press, and most recently Willemsen in 1992.

References

* S. D. Webb. 1974. Chronology of Florida Pleistocene mammals. In S. D. Webb (ed.), Pleistocene Mammals of Florida 5–31 (John Alroy). {{Taxonbar, from=Q7426144 Prehistoric mustelids Otters Extinct animals of North America Pleistocene extinctions