Pampatherium humboldtii (Lund, 1839) (xenarthra, cingulata) of the southern brazilian quaternary: Cranial anatomy and taxonomic remarks

Abstract

This work presents a new specimen of Pampatheriidae, which consists of a skull without the rostrum. The fossil comes from an outcrop along the Chuí Creek, Santa Vitória do Palmar Municipality, Rio Grande do Sul State (RS), Brazil. It was found in a sedimentary layer of the Lagoon System III, of 40 cm thickness and consisting predominantly of fine sand and up to 20–25% silt and clay, together with other vertebrate and invertebrate fossils, some of which are related to the mammalian taxa of the Late Pleistocene of the Pampean Region of Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, of Lujanian age. The comparison of the material with the Quaternary Brazilian pampatheres from the Lagoa Santa region, Minas Gerais; Jacobina, Bahia; and Rio Madeira, Rondônia; as well as with those from Uruguay and Argentina, permits the assignment of the specimen to Pampatherium humboldtii (Lund). The specimen represents the first cranial material of this species described from RS, as up until now P. humboldtii was represented mainly by isolated osteoderms. In addition, a preliminary revision of the Pampatheriidae material from the P.W. Lund Collection is presented.