Darwin's Fossil Mammals - Macrauchenia patachonica – partial skeleton

Specimen number: NHMUK PV M 43402

Specimen links:

Taxon: Macrauchenia patachonica

Description: Partial skeleton

Site: Puerto San Julián, Santa Cruz Province, Argentina

Age: Approximately middle Pleistocene to early Holocene (between 1.5 million and 10,000 years old)

Collection: Collected on 10th to 18th January 1834 by Charles Darwin

Comments: Macrauchenia is a member of an extinct group of mammals called litopterns and this partial skeleton were the first described remains of this group. Richard Owen, who named this animal, was impressed by the similarity of the neck vertebrae to that of modern camelids, which Macrauchenia resembled. However, its ankle bone and feet told a very different story. We now know that litopterns were more closely related to horses, rhinos and tapirs than to camelids. At Port St Julian I found some very perfect bones of some large animal, I fancy a Mastodon: the bones of one hind extremity are very perfect and solid. -- Darwin, C. R. 03/1834. Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 238,” accessed on 4 August 2021, A large extinct Mammiferous Animal, referrible to the Order Pachydermata; but with affinities to the Ruminantia, and especially to the Camelidae. -- Owen, R. 1838-1840. Part I. Fossil Mammalia. In Darwin, C. R. (ed.), The Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, under the command of Captain Fitzroy, R.N. during the years 1832-1836. Smith Elder and Co., London. Page 35.

The video shows the parts of the skeleton which were found by Charles Darwin in life position. A reconstruction of how the animal would have looked is then superimposed on the skeleton, with Darwin included for scale.

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License	Creative Commons Non-Commercial (Any)
Created	3 years ago
id	cf2d7c48-28dc-4a9c-87f8-d3178d59d2cc
linked specimen	dc5b76fd-2304-440d-8562-c347e715eeb8
metadata modified	3 years ago
package id	ffd2d455-c0e5-4eb6-85c3-da8ed1e088d3
position	25
resource group	$genus
state	active

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Macrauchenia patachonica – partial skeleton

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Macrauchenia patachonica – partial skeleton

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