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Trinidad and Tobago is home to about 99 species of terrestrial mammals. About 65 of the mammalian species in the islands are bats (including cave roosting, tree and cavity roosting bats and even foliage-tent-making bats; all with widely differing diets from nectar and fruit, to insects, small vertebrates such as fish, frogs, small birds and rodents and even those that consume vertebrate blood).
They are the mammals most fully adapted to aquatic life with a spindle-shaped nearly hairless body, protected by a thick layer of blubber, and forelimbs and tail modified to provide propulsion underwater. Trinidad and Tobago is within the worldwide ranges of twenty eight cetacean species.
Astrapotheria is an extinct order of South American [2] and Antarctic [3] hoofed mammals that existed from the late Paleocene to the Middle Miocene 2] Astrapotheres were large, rhinoceros-like animals and have been called one of the most bizarre orders of mammals with an enigmatic evolutionary history.
South America suffered another major loss of mammal species in the Quaternary extinction event, which started around 12,500 cal BP, at roughly the time of arrival of Paleoindians, and may have lasted up to several thousand years. At least 37 genera of mammals were eliminated, including most of the megafauna. [5]
Most terrestrial ungulates use the hoofed tips of their toes to support their body weight while standing or moving. Two other orders of ungulates, Notoungulata and Litopterna, both native to South America, became extinct at the end of the Pleistocene, around 12,000 years ago. The term means, roughly, "being hoofed" or "hoofed animal".
The collared peccary (Dicotyles tajacu) is a species of artiodactyl (even-toed) mammal in the family Tayassuidae found in North, Central, and South America. It is the only member of the genus Dicotyles. They are commonly referred to as javelina, saíno, taitetu, or báquiro, although these terms are also used to describe other species in the ...
The collared peccary (Dicotyles tajacu) or "musk hog", referring to the animal's scent glands, occurs from the Southwestern United States into South America and the island of Trinidad. The coat consists of wiry peppered black, gray, and brown hair with a lighter colored "collar" circling the shoulders.
Meridiungulata might have originated in South America from a North American condylarth ancestor, [3] and they may be members of the clade Laurasiatheria, related to other ungulates, including artiodactyls and perissodactyls. [4] It has, however, been suggested the Meridiungulata are part of a different macro-group of placental mammals called ...