1987/04/10 by Christopher A. Shaw, H. Gregory McDonald · 1 citation
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Environmental Science · Social Sciences · #Evolution and Paleontology Studies #Wildlife Ecology and Conservation #Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology #Xenarthra #Temperate climate #Fauna #Geography #Pleistocene #Vertebrate #Early Pleistocene #Habitat #Ecology #Biology #Archaeology
paper · doi:10.1126/science.236.4798.186
openalex publication_date 1987/04/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
A right metacarpal III represents the first North American record of the giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla). Recovered in northwestern Sonora, Mexico, with a rich vertebrate fauna of early Pleistocene (Irvingtonian) age, it belongs to a cohort of large mammals that dispersed from South America to North America along a savanna corridor. Presumably habitat and climatic changes have subsequently driven this mammalian family more than 3000 kilometers back into Central America from its former expansion into temperate North America.