{"id":143482,"date":"2025-10-24T21:13:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T21:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/143482\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T21:13:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T21:13:09","slug":"fossil-of-carnivorous-swamp-monster-found-in-brazil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/143482\/","title":{"rendered":"Fossil of Carnivorous \u2018Swamp Monster\u2019 Found in Brazil"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paleontologists have uncovered the fossilized lower right canine of a large proborhyaenid sparassodont in the Taubat\u00e9 Basin of Brazil.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

The right lower canine of a large proborhyaenid sparassodont from the Trememb\u00e9 Formation, Brazil. Scale bars \u2013 5 mm in (A-E) and 20 mm in (H). Image credit: Rangel et al., doi: 10.4072\/rbp.2025.2.0534.<\/p>\n

The new fossil dates back to the Deseadan age of the Oligocene epoch, between 29 and 21 million years ago.<\/p>\n

The specimen is assigned to a yet-to-be-named member of the Proborhyaenida<\/a>e, an extinct family of South American metatherian mammals within the order Sparassodonta<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These creatures occupied the role of carnivorous predators on the continent during the Cenozoic era.<\/p>\n

\u201cSparassodonta is an extinct clade of metatherians endemic to South America that presented the main terrestrial mammalian predators on this continent during Cenozoic times,\u201d said Dr. Caio C\u00e9sar Rangel, a paleontologist with the Universidade Federal de Uberl\u00e2ndia and the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, and colleagues from Brazil.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir evolution included two major diversification events, firstly in the Eocene and posteriorly in the Miocene.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Oligocene is characterized by lower temperatures compared to the Late Eocene and Miocene.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis global cooling event led to significant environmental changes, which in turn caused a faunal turnover in South America, including the extinction and diversification of several metatherian clades.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Life<\/a><\/p>\n

Life reconstruction of Thylacosmilus atrox, a species of saber-toothed metatherian mammal that belonged to the sister lineage of the Proborhyaenidae. Image credit: Roman Uchytel.<\/p>\n

The paleontologists collected the new specimen, which is 5.73 cm (2.3 inches) in length, from the lower part of the Trememb\u00e9 Formation in the eastern State of S\u00e3o Paulo, Brazil.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Taubat\u00e9 Basin is located in the State of S\u00e3o Paulo in southeastern Brazil and extends from the municipalities of Cachoeira Paulista to Jacarei,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is approximately 150 km (93 miles) in length and 10 to 20 km (6-12 miles) in width, in a graben between the mountain range of Serra do Mar and Serra da Mantiqueira.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Trememb\u00e9 Formation is the only Late Oligocene fossiliferous unit in Brazil that preserves mammal fossils, with a diverse fauna and autochthonous species,\u201d they added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fauna from this locality is represented by Metatheria, Chiroptera, Rodentia, Cingulata, Astrapotheria, Litopterna, Notoungulata, and Pyrotheria.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ancient predator likely lived in the swamp\/lacustrine environment and occupied the role of apex predator.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe procumbence observed in the canine associated with evident wear in the crown, suggests a frequent use probably related to the capture or active processing of prey in an adult individual,\u201d the researchers said.<\/p>\n

The discovery extends the geographic distribution of the Proborhyaenidae and adds a second record of a member of this sparassodont family in Brazil.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis record increases the diversity of large mammals in the Trememb\u00e9 Formation,\u201d the authors said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOverall, this locality is a significant geological and paleontological resource that provides valuable insights into the final stages of the Paleogene period in intertropical South America.\u201d<\/p>\n

The discovery is described in a paper<\/a> published in August 2025 in the journal Revista Brasileira De Paleontologia.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

C.C. Rangel et al. 2025. The \u2018swamp monster\u2019 of the Trememb\u00e9 Formation (Taubat\u00e9 Basin, Brazil; Late Oligocene): a description of a carnivorous metatherian (Sparassodonta, Proborhyaenidae). Revista Brasileira De Paleontologia 28 (2): e20250534; doi: 10.4072\/rbp.2025.2.0534<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paleontologists have uncovered the fossilized lower right canine of a large proborhyaenid sparassodont in the Taubat\u00e9 Basin of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[24056,377,84827,84828,18,4696,24061,19,17,84829,84830,53910,84831,133,13647,84832,84833,19447,84834],"class_list":{"0":"post-143482","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-apex-predator","9":"tag-brazil","10":"tag-canine","11":"tag-carnivory","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-fossil","14":"tag-hypercarnivory","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-metatheria","18":"tag-metatherian","19":"tag-oligocene","20":"tag-proborhyaenidae","21":"tag-science","22":"tag-south-america","23":"tag-sparassodont","24":"tag-taubate-basin","25":"tag-teeth","26":"tag-tremembe-formation"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115431211287431548","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}