The original intended image today was going to show
Macrauchenia without a trunk. However, I did not hear from the illustrator and we do not put up paid artist's creations from their websites without permission, unlike much of the internet. Instead, we see the interaction of
Macrauchenia as prey and a late common predator of South America,
Smilodon fatalis.
Smilodon emigrated across the isthmus of Panama late in the lifeline of litopternans and very late in the line of
Macrauchenia itself. Prior to the introduction of
Smilodon the major predators of
Macrauchenia were the morphologically similar but unrelated
Thhylacosmilus and giant birds like
Andalgalornis. This foreign incursion of predators (bears and other cats in addition to
S. fatalis), along with many other ecological factors, played their parts in the extinction of this great and singular ungulate of South America. South America, at the time, was much as Australia is now in terms of the isolation of the faunal assemblage. As with Australian isolation, the sudden introduction of exotic taxa to South America ended not only the lineages of herbivores like
Macrauchenia but also carnivores like
Thylacosmilus.
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