Doedicurus clavicaudatus paleoart
Scientific name: Doedicurus clavicaudatus
Family: Chlamyphoridae
Epoc: Pleistocene
Size: 1,5m tall
Location: South America
Description
Our reconstruction of D. clavicaudatus is a male specimen, in agonistic combat posture.
Our reconstruction swings its caudal club to its left and keeps its hind legs slightly higher than at rest to hypothetically appear more threatening.
Note the extremely limited range of movement of the head, which is blocked by the shell with only a few degrees of rotation in its neck. This limited range of movement would create a huge blind spot on its rear end.
A head cap based on the find recently presented by the San Pedro Museum (Argentina) has been incorporated into our reconstruction.
Doedicurus is especially known in popular culture for being a glyptodontine with a massive caudal club. Its use was probably limited to intraspecific combat.
The caudal club in our reconstruction, has blunt spikes. This selection was made because of the type of wounds attributed to intraspecific fighting on Doedicurus shells.
The caudal bone sheath in our reconstruction is covered with scaly keratinized skin, although the type of skin and texture of this covering in the fossil record are unknown.
Doedicurus clavicaudatus was the largest known armadillo species of all time, measuring about 3.5 meters long. Doedicurus coexist with very emblematic fauna such as Smilodon populator, Macrauchenia, other species of glyptodonts and even with Homo sapiens, who hunted it according to evidence in the fossil record.
Bibliography:
Alexander, R. M.; Fariña, R. A.; Vizcaíno, S. F. (May 1999). «Tail blow energy and carapace fractures in a large glyptodont (Mammalia, Xenarthra)». Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 126 (1): 41-49
Sergio F. Vizcaíno, R. Ernesto Blanco J. Benjamín Bender, Nick Milne (February 2011) « Proportions and function of the limbs of glyptodonts ».
Alfredo E. Zurita, Gustavo J. Scillato-Yané, Martín Ciancio, Martín Zamorano & Laureano González Ruiz (May 2016) «Los Glyptodontidae (Mammalia, Xenarthra): Historia biogeográfica y evolutiva de un grupo particular de mamíferos acorazados».
Sebastián Tambusso, Luciano Varela, Flávio Góis, Jorge Felipe Moura de Jesus
(February 2021)« The inner ear anatomy of glyptodonts and pampatheres (Xenarthra, Cingulata): Functional and phylogenetic implications »
(February 2021)« The inner ear anatomy of glyptodonts and pampatheres (Xenarthra, Cingulata): Functional and phylogenetic implications »
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