Proterotheriidae is an extinction family of Litopterna ungulates known from the Eocene-Late Pleistocene of South America. Members of the group were small-medium sized cursorial Herbivore with brachydont Tooth, with their Toe showing progressive reduction, with later members of the group bearing weight on a single large toe similar to living Horse.
Better known genera of the family include Diadiaphorus and Thoatherium from the Miocene.'']]
Proterotheriidae is traditionally considered to include two subfamilies, Anisolambdinae and Proterotheriinae. Anisolambdinae (also called Anisolambdidae in some studies) was proposed to unite the primitive and earlier forms Anisolambda, Eolicaphrium, Paranisolambda, Protheosodon, Guilielmofloweria, Heteroglyphis, Lambdaconops, Wainka and Xesmodon. However, the phylogenetic analysis of McGrath and colleagues recovered the included genera to neither form their own clade, or to universally represent basal taxa outside the genera of Proterotheriinae per Soria, making Anisolambdinae a polyphyletic group of unrelated organisms.
Proterotheriidae was redefined by McGrath and colleagues in 2019 to be all taxa closer to Tetramerorhinus than Macrauchenia, Tricoelodus or Protolipterna. The cladogram below shows the modified results of their phylogenetic analysis, where incomplete taxa were placed based on morphology. The unrelated genera of the polyphyletic taxon Anisolambdinae or Anisolambdidae is highlighted in pink.
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