Tetrastylus
Extinct genus of rodent
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tetrastylus is an extinct genus of dinomyid rodent that lived in South America during the Neogene and Quaternary periods.[1]
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| Tetrastylus Temporal range: | |
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| Skull of Tetrastylus intermedius, taken 2022 | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Rodentia |
| Family: | Dinomyidae |
| Genus: | †Tetrastylus Ameghino, 1886 |
| Species | |
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Tetrastylus angustidens Rusconi, 1934 Tetrastylus araucanus Ameghino, 1904 Tetrastylus atrophiatus Rovereto, 1914 Tetrastylus intermedius Rovereto, 1914 Tetrastylus laevigatus Ameghino, 1886 Tetrastylus montanus Ameghino, 1891 | |
Distribution
Palaeobiology
Locomotion
Analysis of the occipitocervical morphology of Tetrastylus intermedius specimens from northwestern Argentina suggests that this species was a terrestrial animal, but it still retained some holdover traits related to arborealism from its evolutionary past, such as larger paracondyles relative to the modern pacarana and a size-proportionate head.[2] It was less scansorial, however, than the extant Dinomys.[4]