Carolozittelia is an extinct genus of , belonging to the order Pyrotheria. It contains the single species Carolozittelia tapiroides which lived during the Early Eocene. Its fossilized remains were found in South America.
Description
This genus is only known from a few fossil teeth, and its appearance is entirely conjectural. The molars of
Carolozittelia were endowed with transversal crests, but traces of tubercles from a primitive quadrituberculate dentition can still be recognized.
Classification
Carolozittelia was first described in 1901 by Florentino Ameghino, based on fossils found in
Argentine Patagonia, in terrains dating from the
Eocene. Ameghino described two species attributed to the genus:
Carolozittelia tapiroides and
C. eluta, the second later synonymized with the first.
Carolozittelia was a Pyrothere, a clade of South American mammals of uncertain affinities, who lived during the early Cenozoic. It was one of the oldest members of the order, and is now considered one of the most basal members of the family Pyrotheriidae.
Bibliography
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F. Ameghino. 1901. Notices préliminaires sur des ongulés nouveaux des terrains crétacés de Patagonie Preliminary. Boletin de la Academia Nacional de Ciencias de Córdoba 16:349-429
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G. G. Simpson. 1967. The beginning of the age of mammals in South America. Part II. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 137:1-260
