The armadillo Propraopus sulcatus (Mammalia: Xenarthra) from the late Quaternary of northern Brazil and a revised synonymy with Propraopus grandis

This paper describes new remains of Propraopus sulcatus from a late Quaternary cave deposit located in Aurora do Tocantins, northern Brazil. Propraopus was recorded in numerous late Pleistocene–early Holocene sites in South America, and its inclusiveness has been long debated. In order to address so...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Castro, Mariela C., Avilla, Leonardo S., Freitas, Mila L., Carlini, Alfredo Armando
Formato: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2013
País:Argentina
Recursos:Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
Repositorio:CONICET Digital (CONICET)
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ri.conicet.gov.ar:11336/2391
Acesso em linha:http://hdl.handle.net/11336/2391
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palavra-chave:PROPRAOPUS
TOCANTINS
QUATERNARY
BRAZIL
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1.5
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1
Descrição
Resumo:This paper describes new remains of Propraopus sulcatus from a late Quaternary cave deposit located in Aurora do Tocantins, northern Brazil. Propraopus was recorded in numerous late Pleistocene–early Holocene sites in South America, and its inclusiveness has been long debated. In order to address some of the controversial taxonomic questions, the osteoderms of P. sulcatus were qualitatively and quantitatively compared to those of related nominal species (Propraopus grandis, Propraopus magnus, Dasypus bellus, and Dasypus punctatus); special attention was given to the former due to the debated synonymy between both taxa. Analyses reveal that there is no morphologic, spatial, or temporal discontinuity between P. sulcatus and P. grandis. Adopting morphologic, associational, and distributional criteria to define morphospecies, we believe it is impossible to clearly separate both nominal entities. As a consequence, in agreement with previous studies, we favor their synonymization. P. sulcatus has nomenclatural priority over P. grandis and should be the valid name for the species. The scarce analyzed remains referred to P. magnus show concordant size and morphology with P. sulcatus, but the analysis of more complete material is essential to determine its synonymization. Finally, we revised and updated the geochronologic distribution of Propraopus.