Prepotherium

Prepotherium is an extinct genus of megatheriid ground sloths that lived during the Miocene period. Fossils of Prepotherium have been found in the Collón Curá and Santa Cruz Formations of Argentina.[1]

Prepotherium
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain:Eukaryota
Kingdom:Animalia
Phylum:Chordata
Class:Mammalia
Order:Pilosa
Family:Megatheriidae
Subfamily:Planopsinae
Genus:Prepotherium
Ameghino, 1891
Species
  • P. filholi
  • P. moyani
  • P. potens Ameghino 1891

Prepotherium differed from Megatherium by being smaller and having a less exaggeratedly convex inferior border of the lower jaw.[2]

Redefined species

An additional species from Venezuela, P. venezuelanum, was named by R. Collins in 1935.[3] from fossils found in the Portuguesa state and additional remains from the Acre state in Brazil.[4] However, this species was later reclassified in its own genus, Pseudoprepotherium, as a basal member of another family of ground sloths, the Mylodontidae.[5][6]

References