Pyrotherium
Name:
Pyrotherium
(Fire beast).
Phonetic: Py-roe-fee-re-um.
Named By: Florentino Ameghino - 1888.
Classification: Chordata, Mammalia, Pyrotheria,
Pyrotheriidae.
Species: P. romeroi (type),
P.
macfaddeni. Additionally, P. giganteum, P. planum, P.
sorondoi.
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: Skull up to 72 centimetres long. Bodly length
between 3 and 3.5 meters.
Known locations: South America.
Time period: Rupelian of the Oligocene.
Fossil representation: Several specimens.
Pyrotherium
was a fairly large and heavily built quadrupedal mammal that seems to
have been similar to primitive elephants that were living in other
parts of the world. This is yet another case of convergent evolution
that is displayed by South American mammals which during this time
would have been living upon a continent that was isolated from the rest
of the world. Other examples include later litopterns such a
Theosodon
which resembled a primitive horse and Macrauchenia
which
looked like a bizarre camel.
Pyrotherium
possesses highly modified incisors that grew into short tusks that
extended from both upper (two pairs) and lower jaws (one
pair). The anterior portion of the skull is also shaped so that a
short trunk grew from the end of the snout. Together Pyrotherium
would have used the tusks to root up plants and then manipulate them
into its mouth with the trunk. Once inside the molar teeth at the
back of the mouth would process the food before it was swallowed.
Further reading
- Sur les oiseaux fossiles de Patagonie; et la faune mammalogique des
couches à Pyrotherium. - Boletin del Instituto Geographico Argentino
15:501-660. - F. Ameghino - 1894.
- Mammiféres crétacés de l’Argentine (Deuxième contribution à la
connaissance de la fauna mammalogique de couches à Pyrotherium)
[Cretaceous mammals of Argentina (second contribution to the knowledge
of the mammalian fauna of the Pyrotherium Beds)]. - Boletin Instituto
Geografico Argentino 18(4–9):406-521. - F. Ameghino - 1897.
- Notices préliminaires sur des ongulés nouveaux des terrains crétacés
de Patagonie [Preliminary notes on new ungulates from the Cretaceous
terrains of Patagonia]. - Boletin de la Academia Nacional de Ciencias
de Córdoba 16:349-429. - F. Ameghino - 1901.
- Pyrotherium macfaddeni, sp. nov. (late Oligocene,
Bolivia) and the
pedal morphology of pyrotheres. - Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology
24(2):481-488. - B. J. Shockey & F. Anaya-Daza - 2004.
- Enamel microstructure and mastication in Pyrotherium romeroi
(Pyrotheria, Mammalia). Paläontologische Zeitschrift 89: 611–634. - W.
Koenigswald, T. von Martin & G. Billet - 2015.
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