''Sudamerica'', literally "

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 ...

" in

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

, is a genus of

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 ...

from the extinct suborder

Gondwanatheria Gondwanatheria is an extinct group of mammaliaforms that lived in parts of Gondwana, including Madagascar, India, South America, Africa, and Antarctica during the Upper Cretaceous through the Miocene (and possibly much earlier, if '' Allostaffia' ...

that lived 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 ...

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 ...

(

Salamanca Formation The Salamanca Formation is a geologic formation in the Golfo San Jorge Basin of central Patagonia that yields well-preserved, well-dated fossils from the early Paleocene. Studies of these fossils are providing new data on plant and animal diversit ...

) and

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...

(

La Meseta Formation The La Meseta Formation is a sedimentary sequence deposited during much of the Paleogene on Seymour Island off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. It is noted for its fossils, which include both marine organisms and the only terrestrial vertebr ...

) from the Middle Paleocene (

Peligran The Peligran () age is a period of geologic time (62.5–59.0 Mya (unit), Ma) within the Paleocene epoch of the Paleogene, used more specifically with South American land mammal ages (SALMA). It follows the Tiupampan and precedes the Riochican age. ...

), just after the end of the "

Age of Dinosaurs ''Age of Dinosaurs'' is a 2013 American Science fiction film, science fiction action film directed by Joseph J. Lawson and starring Ronny Cox and Treat Williams. Plot Using flesh-regeneration (biology), regeneration machines, Genetisharp (a biote ...

", to the

Early Eocene In the geologic timescale the Ypresian is the oldest age (geology), age or lowest stage (stratigraphy), stratigraphic stage of the Eocene. It spans the time between , is preceded by the Thanetian Age (part of the Paleocene) and is followed by th ...

(

Casamayoran The Casamayoran () age is a period of geologic time (50.0–48.0 Ma) within the Early Eocene epoch of the Paleogene, used more specifically within the South American land mammal age (SALMA) classification. It follows the Itaboraian and precedes th ...

).''Sudamerica''
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

Etymology

The genus and species were named by Scillato-Yané and R. Pascual in 1984. The genus is also known by the synonym ''Sudamericana'' and the species

epithet An epithet (, ), also a byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) commonly accompanying or occurring in place of the name of a real or fictitious person, place, or thing. It is usually literally descriptive, as in Alfred the Great, Suleima ...

''ameghinoi'' refers to notable Argentinian paleontologist

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 ...

Description

Similar to '' Gondwanatherium'', this genus had high-crowned teeth, which are very useful for eating

grass Poaceae ( ), also called Gramineae ( ), is a large and nearly ubiquitous family (biology), family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos, the grasses of natural grassland and spe ...

es. Since there is no evidence of grass in South America until later, they must also have been effective for other types of food.

Classification

The

type specimen In biology, a type is a particular wikt:en:specimen, specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally associated. In other words, a type is an example that serves to ancho ...

of ''Sudamerica ameghinoi'' was discovered in Punta Peligro,

in deposits dating to the Lower Paleocene period. In 1999, a near complete lower jaw (

dentary In jawed vertebrates, the mandible (from the Latin ''mandibula'', 'for chewing'), lower jaw, or jawbone is a bone that makes up the lowerand typically more mobilecomponent of the mouth (the upper jaw being known as the maxilla). The jawbone ...

) was found. The position of gondwanatherians within the class Mammalia is not yet clear.

Etymology

Description

Classification

References

Further reading