Daily Dose of Prehistory: Back From Extinction 88
5 years ago by deleted · 266 Likes · 2 comments · Trending
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· 5 years ago
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Macrauchenia patachonica, meaning "Long Llama", was a long-necked/long-limbed South American ungulate belonging to the order Litopterna discovered by Charles Darwin and Sir Richard Owen in the early to mid 1830s. Living on the pampas from the Late Miocene to the late Pleistocene, Macrauchenia would've resembled a humpless camel or llama with a trunk (though some scientists dispute the existence of said trunk), weighing around 2300 pounds, measuring up to 10 feet long, and up to 6 feet tall at the shoulder. They would've been common prey animals, being preyed upon by everything from terror birds and dire wolves to humans and jaguars, using both its great speed and unusually good mobility for an animal as large as it was to escape their pursuers.
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· 5 years ago
Seems like they may have had a similar ecological niche to modern gazelle? I would have to do more research though.