In Depth
Protypotherium might have looked like a long legged rabbit, but it was actually a notoungulate, a group of mammals unrelated to rabbits. The biggest confusion about Protypotherium is regarding its diet since it possesses all forty-four mammalian teeth, yet no real specialisation towards a specific diet. While Protypotherium is usually interpreted as being a browser of vegetation, there is commonplace speculation about how it might have been a scavenger of carrion as well.
Further Reading
– Nuevos restos de mam�feros f�siles descubiertos por Carlos Ameghino en el Eoceno inferior de la Patagonia austral. – Especies nuevas, adiciones y correcciones [New remains of fossil mammals discovered by Carlos Ameghino in the lower Eocene of southern Patagonia. – New species, additions, and corrections]. Revista Argentina de Historia Natural 1:289-328. – F. Ameghino – 1891. – Reconocimiento de la Region Andina de la Rep�blica Argentina. Apuntes sobre la Geolog�a y la Paleontolog�a de los Territorios del R�o Negro y Neuqu�n (Diciembre de 1895 � Junio de 1896) [Reconaissance of the Andean Region of the Argentine Republic. – Notes on the Geology and Paleontology of the Territories of the R�o Negro and Neuqu�n (December 1895 to June 1896)] 1-56. – S. Roth – 1898. – Nuevas especies de mam�feros, cret�ceos y terciarios de la Rep�blica Argentina [New species of mammals, Cretaceous and Tertiarty, from the Argentine Republic]. – Anales de la Sociedad Cientifica Argentina 56–58:1-142. – F. Ameghino – 1904. – Systematic description of three new mammals (Notoungulata and Rodentia) from the Early Miocene Cerro Bandera Formation, Northern Patagonia, Argentina. – Ameghiniana 52(6):585-597. – A. G. Kramarz, M. Bond & M. Arnal – 2015. – The Interatheriinae notoungulates from the middle Miocene Coll�n Cur� Formation in Argentina. – Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 62(4):845-863. – B. Vera, M. Reguero & L. Gonz�lez-Ruiz – 2017.
