Talk:Macrauchenia

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As ungulates have hooves rather than toes, this animal really should not be considered an unguluate. --198.188.255.2 18:21, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Ungulates do have toes - the hooves are their toenails. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 13:03, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

MAcrachenia patachonica

It seems like there is only one species of the genus known. I think that should be mentioned in the text. Does anybody have good sources for that fact?--Altaileopard 10:36, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Autochthony writes. "Macrauchenia had a somewhat camel-like body, with sturdy legs, a long neck and a relatively small head. Its feet, however, more closely resembled those of a modern rhinoceros, and had toes hooves each. It was a relatively large animal, with a body length of around 3 metres (9.8 ft) and a weight up to 1042.8 kg.[" Hmmmmm. Looks good. But -

Perhaps one large specimen managed 1043 Kg?

Looks like a conversion of - 'about 2280 pounds'. [60 poods???? - not up to date with Russian weights, but it does ring a little bell, AFAIK!!]

I believe we are not yet able to give absolute maximum weights even for humans, in the internet age, let alone extinct animals. Peraps a general terminology might be preferred - so, I suggest, something like this - "It was a relatively large animal, with a body length of around 3 metres (10 ft) and a weight up to a ton/tonne, or a little more."

Autochthony wrote - 20180608 2240Z. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C5:3387:C801:3579:9EE:3278:2DD (talk) 22:42, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

And, can I add, similar practical rounding in other articles would be appreciated! Thanks. Auto. 2A00:23C5:3387:C801:3579:9EE:3278:2DD (talk) 22:44, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Tapir

Reminds me of a tapir. Is there a possible connection?

No. Tapirs originally came from North America.--Mr Fink 12:23, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Intriguingly, Owen concluded "lastly, this Macrauchenia is itself in a remarkable degree a transitional form, and manifests characters which connect it both with the Tapir and the Llama."[1] . . dave souza, talk 13:03, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Borhyaena cannot be predators of Macrauchenia

Borhyaena (or even Borhyaenidae) cannot be predators of Macrauchenia, since they barely overlap in time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.129.241.130 (talk) 20:52, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Mixed events in "Evolution"

These last original South American hoofed animals died out at the End of the Lujanian (10,000-20,000 years ago)[8] eventually at the time of the arrival of humans at the end of the Pleistocene, along with numerous other large animals on the American continent (such as American proboscideans, equids, camelids and saber-tooth cats)."

Arrival of proboscideans, equids, camelids and saber-tooth cats in South America (i.e. the Great American Interchange) predates the arrival of humans by 2 million years. Macrauchenia stands out among the Litopterns in the first place because it was practically the only one of them that was not affected the migration of North American mammals at all and its way later extinction in the Lujanian is therefore not related to that at all, contrary to what the current text implies. Alas, edition is currently blockaded. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.26.120.40 (talk) 17:51, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

I started rewriting that paragraph to remove that unfortunate and unfortunately wrong implication. Editing is currently restricted to stem a massive tide of vandalism edits via unregistered IPs.--Mr Fink (talk) 21:43, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

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About the trunk

FunkMonk, I feel that the caption "The animal may not have had a trunk" clashes somewhat with the rest of the text, which does not raise any objections to the trunk hypothesis. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 22:09, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

The objection seems to be relatively new, but is published, see:[2] FunkMonk (talk) 22:11, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be good to include the content from that book in the main body, then... Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 22:13, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, don't have it though. But it seems the idea will be solidified soon, as Darren Naish will also express dissent in his upcoming fossil vertebrate book. "Oh, and Macrauchenia is NOT ILLUSTRATED WITH A TRUNK, Croft’s accompanying text explaining how nostril location and morphology in this animal is not really suggestive of a proboscis at all. I’m relieved to hear this; I agree and have said exactly the same thing in the relevant section of the textbook I’m working on." FunkMonk (talk) 22:14, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

There is a new paper about the trunk in tapirs, and offers some comparison with other pressumed mammals with trunks, including macrauchenids. The relevant paragraph says this: "The case of macraucheniids (here represented by Huayqueriana) is remarkable for its scoring closely matched that of Alces, except for one character state (presence of enlarged frontal sinus; Table 1). Alces is a taxon strongly associated to water and Milewski and Dierenfeld (2013) assigned a novel function to its prorhiscis: capturing air that aids in buoyancy. Macraucheniines have been variously associated to water (see Guérin and Faure, 2004 and citations therein), and Huayqueriana presents a uniquely reoriented air pathway with the meatus nasi transformed into a large nasal diverticulum without anterior opening (see Forasiepi et al., 2016). This highly modified meatus may act as an air trap for buoyancy, as proposed by Milewski and Dierenfeld (2013) for Alces, and may be also for respiration (our speculation), together with the presumed prorhiscis. Still, macraucheniids are unique in many aspects of the snout anatomy (see details in Forasiepi et al. 2016), so it remains to be investigated whether macraucheniids, and macraucheniines in particular, such as Huayqueriana and Macrauchenia, match the proposed narial function of Alces. In conclusion, a true short proboscis must have been present in later representatives amynodontids, astrapotherians, pyrotherians, and possibly some merycoidodonts, among other fossil hoofed mammals. Neither macraucheniids nor any extant hoofed mammals, other than tapirs, can be interpreted as presenting a true short proboscis. In fact, these should be interpreted as cases of prorhiscis." --Rextron (talk) 07:48, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Ok, so it seems the last sentence suggests it would have had a structure similar to that of saiga antelopes? That doesn't seem that far from the current restorations, though slightly shorter. Certainly worth a mention in the article then. FunkMonk (talk) 10:32, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes, similar in the sense that such structure was not used for feeding like a true proboscis but to make another functions, of course the true length of the nose is still very speculative (the Velizar Simeonovski's version mentioned by Darren Naish, actually lacks of anything that could be called a "trunk"). The paper is also useful since that cites a list of anatomic features that are needed for a proboscis, and which macrauchenids are lacking.--Rextron (talk) 08:15, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

Improving Macrauchenia

Instead of pointless arguments over whether the animal had a trunk or not, is anyone else interested in systematically improving the article? There's a range map of Macrauchenia given in the recent diet paper which I intend to rework and upload soon. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:38, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Macrauchenia probably had a trunk after all

Some spectacular rock art has been published in Quaternary International from Colombia paper here, BBC article with freely accessible images here showing the probably first depictions of giant ground sloths as well as those of a macrauchenid (labelled F), likely Xenorhinotherium based on location, the three toes are clearly visible, as is what clearly looks like a trunk. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:30, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, there are of course some that have doubted the identifications, they do seem extremely specific considering how simple some of the drawings are, but in any case, we can only stick to what the sources say. And if some of the images are free, we should certainly add them here... FunkMonk (talk) 21:40, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

The three toes are a pretty specific giveaway, theres not any other ungulates in south america with three splayed toes other than macraucheniids aside from toxodontids, which have a completely different body profile. They specifically call it a trunk in the paper, but the angle of the image doesn't really make the extent of ochre clear. The images are specifically stated to be copyrighted, but as some of them are essentially photographs of two dimensional drawings, they could reasonably be considered faithful 2d images of public domain art. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:04, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

It seems like this rock art of Xenorhinotherium or whatever this possible macraucheniid may be, appears to have a dromedary-like hump, but that could be reading too much into things. If true, would this also apply to Macrauchenia as well? I've also heard people mention that it could be some sort of tapir. I'm of two-minds of with that idea, with how well drawn the equine is, I have my doubts on that idea. But on the other hand, with how enigmatic the art labelled a. looks (is it a bear, ground sloth, sabre-cat, capybara or glyptodont?), I can see it simply being artwork of a tapir of some kind. Monsieur X (talk) 02:48, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

• In light of this, I think we should maybe restore the original versions of the modified restorations, and upload the derivatives separately. For example like this[3], where great care was taken to render the trunk, seems like it could benefit from having both versions. FunkMonk (talk) 13:51, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
  • I'm on board, though someone has already split Nobu's version. Monsieur X (talk) 14:45, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Oh, cool! But nice work on the trunkless versions in any case. FunkMonk (talk) 15:44, 7 February 2021 (UTC)