Platygonus

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Platygonus
Fossil range: Pliocene to Late Pleistocene

Fossil

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Artiodactyla
Family:	Tayassuidae
Genus:	Platygonus Le Conte, 1848

Species

P. compressus (type)
P. bicalcaratus
P. brachirostris
P. oregonensis
P. pearcei
P. vetus

Platygonus is an extinct genus of peccary.

Platygonus was 1 m (3 ft, 4 in) long (larger than modern peccaries) and had long legs, allowing it to run well. It also had a pig-like snout and long, carnivore-like tusks which were probably used to fend off predators. Platygonus's digestive system was very complex, more similar to that of a ruminant.

Platygonus was a gregarious animal and, like modern peccaries, traveled in packs. It ranged from southern Canada to Mexico and from California to Pennsylvania. Stratigraphically, it occurs throughout the Pleistocene (Calabrian), and as early as the Blancan in the Gelasian of the Pliocene.

[edit] References

Wagner, George (1903) "Observations on Platygonus Compressus Leconte" The Journal of Geology University of Chicago. Dept. of Geology and Paleontology, University of Chicago Press. Journals Division, 11: pp. 777-782;
Hoare, Richard D. et al. (May 1964) "Pleistocene Peccary Platygonus Compressus Leconte from Sandusky County, Ohio" The Ohio Journal of Science 64(3): pp. 207-214;
Ray, Clayton E.; Denny, Charles S. and Rubin, Meyer (January 1970) "A peccary, Platygonus Compressus LeConte, from drift of Wisconsian age in Northern Pennsylvania" The American Journal of Science Yale University 268: pp.78-94;
Wilson, Ronald C.; Guilday, John E. and Branstetter, John A. (October 1975) "Extinct Peccary (Platygonus compressus LeConte) From a Central Kentucky Cave" The NSS Bulletin 37(4): pp. 83-87;
Kurtén, Björn; and Anderson, Elaine (1980) Pleistocene Mammals of North America Columbia University Press, New York ISBN 0-231-03733-3 ;
Murray, Lyndon K. et al. (September 2005) "Late Pleistocene Fauna from the Southern Colorado Plateau, Navajo County, Arizona" The Southwestern Naturalist 50(3): pp. 363–374;