CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

The American porcupines are systematically grouped in three genera: Coendou Lacépède, Erethizon Cuvier, and Sphiggurus Cuvier, although Coendou is considered the valid Neotropical taxon. The semiarboreal Erethizon dorsatum (Linnaeus) is the unique extant form that survived in North America after the Great American Biotic Interchange (GABI) (late Pliocene, ca. 2.7?2.5 Ma). At present, 13 species live in Central and South America from tropical to subtropical regions. The southernmost occurrence is found in woodland regions from north of Argentina and Uruguay. However, the fossil record of the group had an early beginning in the late Oligocene (Deseadan Stage/Age) from Patagonia and Bolivia, declining its richness and distribution since late Miocene times (Huayquerian Stage/Age). In North America the semiarboreal genus Erethizon is known from the Plio-Pleistocene to the extant four species, whereas the trustworthy records of Erethizontidae are restricted to the austral region of South America with Coendou magnus (Lund) coming from the Late Pleistocene-early Holocene of Brazil and Late Pleistocene of Uruguay. An additional record from the Late Pliocene of Argentina (Jujuy Province), with uncertain stratigraphical context, is probably the southernmost fossil record of ?Erethizon? genus. However, a recent revision referred this porcupine to cf. Coendou genus. The morphological features and mandible dimensions of the specimen herein analyzed (MFA?Pv 1706) clearly indicate that it is close to the Pleistocene erethizontid C. magnus. This material comes from fluvial sediments of the Timbúes Formation (Late Pleistocene) at the geomorphological province of Pampa Norte, outside from the traditional bonaerian Pampean region. Thus, it constitutes the southernmost fossil record of a modern Erethizontidae with reliably stratigraphic context.

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