Paramylodon: Difference between revisions

Within the genus ''Paramylodon'', only one [[species]], ''P. harlani'', is recognized. Another species, ''P. nebrascensis'', was described in 1903 by [[Barnum Brown]] on the basis of a partial skeleton from Hay Spring in [[Nebraska]],<ref name="Brown 19032" /> but was already synonymised with the [[type species]] in the 1920s. Only ten years later, [[Glover Morrill Allen]] created the species ''Mylodon garmani'' with the help of another partial skeleton from the [[Niobrara River]] in Nebraska,<ref name="Allen 1913">Glover M. Allen: ''A new Mylodon.'' Memoirs of the Museum of Comparative Zoology 40 (7), 1913, S. 319–346</ref> but this is also considered a [[Synonym (taxonomy)|synonym]] of ''Paramylodon harlani''. The same applies to several species named by [[Edward Drinker Cope]] as early as the 1870s and 1890s, such as ''Mylodon sodalis'' and ''Mylodon sulcidens''.<ref name="McDonald 1995" /> The original subdivision into two subspecies, ''P. h. harlani'' for a robust and ''P. h. tenuiceps'' for a gracefulgracile form, as suggested by [[Chester Stock]] in 1917,<ref name="Stock 1917" /><ref name="Stock 1925" /> is no longer advocated today.<ref name="McDonald 2006" /> However, the species "''Glossotherium''" ''chapadmalense'' is problematic. The species was originally identified in 1925 by Lucas Kraglievich from a 39&nbsp;cm long, nearly undamaged skull with mandible from Middle Pliocene strata east of Miramar in the Argentina [[Buenos Aires Province|Buenos Aires province]].<ref name="Kraglievich 1925">Lucas Kraglievich: ''Cuatro nuevos gravigrados de la fauna Araucana "Chapadmalense".'' Anales del Museo Nacional de Historia Natural de Buenos Aires 33, 1925, S. 215–235</ref> It shows similarities to ''Glossotherium robustum'', but also possesses individual divergences that may justify its own generic status; for example, the name "''Eumylodon''" (which Kraglievich already used for ''Eumylodon chapadmalense'' in 1925) has been suggested. The form could thus be the common ancestor of ''Glossotherium'' and ''Paramylodon''. However, whether this also applies to the North American finds from the Pliocene of Florida and Mexico, first listed under the same species name by Jesse S. Robertson in 1976, or these are closer to ''Paramylodon'' is currently unclear due to lack of comparative studies.<ref name="McAfee2009" /> Partially, the early mylodont remains are also listed as ''P. garbanii'', a species name given in 1986 to some Pliocene mandible and limb remains from Arroyo EI Tanque in the Mexican State of Guanajuato had been coined (under the scientific name ''Glossotherium garbanii'').<ref name="Morgan 2008">Gary S. Morgan: ''Vertebrate fauna and geochronology of the Great American Biotic Interchange in North America.'' New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science Bulletin 44, 2008, S. 93–140</ref><ref name="Montellano et al. 1986">Marisol Montellano-Ballesteros und Oscar Carranza-Castaneda: ''Descripcion de un milodontido del Blancano temprano de la mesa central de Mexico.'' Instituto de Geología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Revista 6, 1986, S. 193–203</ref> The species is not fully recognized, however, and other authors consider it a synonym of ''Glossotheridium/Glossotherium chapadmalense''.<ref name="McDonald 2002" />