The southernmost record of a large erethizontid rodent (Hystricomorpha: Erethizontoidea) in the Pleistocene of South America: biogeographic and paleoenvironmental implications

VEZZOSI, R.I.; KERBER, L.

JOURNAL OF SOUTH AMERICAN EARTH SCIENCES

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2018 vol. 82 p. 76 - 90

0895-9811

The South American porcupines (Erethizontidae) are included in two genera: Chaetomys and Coendou. The latter is a very speciose taxon, with about 13 livingspecies. During at least the late Pliocene?early Pleistocene, erethizontids immigratedto Central and North America during the Great American Biotic Interchange. Althoughsome Pleistocene fossils have been reported, the Quaternary history of thisclade is still understudied. The only known extinct species is Coendou magnus. In this work, a fossilof a porcupine is reported from an Upper Pleistocene fluvial sedimentarysequence cropping out in the Northern Pampa geomorphological region, Santa Fe Province,Argentina. Despite this group having different living forms widely distributedin South American Neotropical woodland habitats, the Pleistocene occurrences ofErethizontidae are scarce and limited to Upper Pleistocene deposits from Bolivia,Brazil, and Uruguay. Currently, the specimen here reported represents the onlyPleistocene porcupine from Argentina with a stratigraphical context. Themorphological characters as well as the dimensions indicate that it is close tothe Pleistocene erethizontid Coendoumagnus. In this context, the presence of this erethizontid in such asouthern locality, together with other taxa recorded from this site and theassociated geological and paleoenvironmental evidence, indicates subtropicalconditions, compared with the current conditions, which may have allowed asouthern displacement of taxa more related to woodlands and xeric subtropical environments.