Nothrotherium

Template:Short description Template:Automatic taxobox Nothrotherium is an extinct genus of medium-sized ground sloth from South America (Bolivia, Brazil and the Ware Formation, La Guajira, Colombia). It differs from Nothrotheriops in smaller size and differences in skull and hind leg bones.

Taxonomy

Nothrotherium is derived from the Greek nothros [νωθρός], meaning "lazy" or "slothful," and therion [θηρίον], "beast", and the species N. maquinense is named after the Maquiné Grotto in Brazil, where it was found. Synonyms such as Coelodon occasionally cause confusion where they occur in early texts such as that of Alfred Russel Wallace's major work, The Geographical Distribution of Animals (1876). This genus formerly included the species Nothrotheriops shastensis, which was later moved to Nothrotheriops.

Description

Analysis of δ¹³C values of N. maquinense remains suggests that they were specialists feeding predominantly on C₃ vegetation. Analysis of a coprolite associated with a N. maquinense skeleton in Brazil's Gruta dos Brejoes show it to have been a browser which fed on xerophytic leaves and fruits, and it is sometimes thought to have been an inhabitant of open, peripheral forests, possibly having a semi-arboreal lifestyle, like the contemporaneous Cuban ground sloths and Diabolotherium. Plant material in the Gruta dos Brejoes coprolite yielded a date of 12,200 ± 120 yr BP.

Further reading

• Classification of Mammals by Malcolm C. McKenna and Susan K. Bell

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