Palaeolama+mirifica

Prehistoric Llama – Introduction ==== The modern-day llama has gone through many thousands of years of evolution in order to gain the properties and appearances it has today. For example, camelids once lived in what is now today North America as well as South America. They, however, have dispersed to live in other environments, adapt or die. By the end of the last Ice Age, prehistoric camelids had died out in Norhtern America but their adaptive cousins had then gone on to thrive in their new environments. ====


 * ====Kingdom: ==== || ====Animalia==== ||
 * ====Phylum: ==== || ====Chordata==== ||
 * ====Class: ==== || ====Mammalia==== ||
 * ====Order: ==== || ====Artiodactyla==== ||
 * ====Suborder: ==== || ====Ruminantia==== ||
 * ====Family: ==== || ====Camelidae==== ||
 * ====Tribe: ==== || ====Lamini==== ||
 * ====Genus: ==== || ====†**//Palaeolama//** ==== ||

==== One of the earliest forms of this mammal was the //Palaeolama mirifica//. The Palaeolama mirifica, or the Stout-Legged Llama as it is also known as, was a herbivorous animal that bears great resembleance to both the modern day llama and the camel (since both animals come from the same family, Camelidae) The Stout-Legged Llama was, as described, a short (growing to approximately 4ft tall) stout-legged camelid (as seen in Figure 1) with many of the characteristics of a llama but also lacking many. Not much is known about them but it is known that their diet consisted of grasses and bushes. ====

Figure 1: the //Palaeolama mirifica// in comparison to another speices of Magna Fauna.
Habitat ==== The //Palaeolama mirifica// lived in the open grassy plains (where the Northern American state of Florida now is, figure 2). Most of their fossils have been found in Florida, (more specifically in the counties of [|Alachua], [|Citrus], [|Hillsborough], [|Manatee], [|Polk], [|Brevard], [|Orange], [|Sumter], [|Levy].)==== ====Here the //Palaeolama mirifica// lived in herds and fed on the grasslands. The area was much warmer than that comparded to the nowadays environment of the modern-day llama. The //Palaeolama mirifica//was most likely prey to the prehistoric predecessor of the jaguar. ==== ====The //Paeleolama mirifica// also had to face competitions for food with the [|Hemiauchenia macrocephala], another species of prehistoric camelid, and faced dangers such as the //Cainus dirus//, otherwise known as the [|Dire Wolf]. ====



Figure 2: A map comparing the habitat area of the modern day Llama (encircled in blue) and the //Palaeolama mirifica// (encircled in red).
=Adaptations=

==== The //Palaeolama mirifica// was a short-legged animal thus showing that it need not reach to get to its food source. The //Palaeolama mirifica// was, infact, a ground browser and fed from the ground level on grasses and smaller shrubs. ====

==== The //Palaeolama mirifica//’s teeth were smaller and sharper due to its diet of shrubs and leaves. This enabled the //Palaeolama mirifica// to tear and chew the leaves with ease and so that they can then digest them easier (see Figure 3). An interesting fact about the //Palaeolama mirifica//’s teeth is that they come in sets of two. It is know quite know as to why this is but one can imagine that it w ould have helped the //Palaeolama mirifica// chew it’s food with more ease.====



==== Like that of the Llama, the //Palaeolama mirifica// also had two-toes. This enabled the //Palaeolama mirifica// to perhaps move around its habitat with more ease that that of other browsing quadrupeds. They appear to have lived in a more savannah-type environment, thus needing the two-toes in order to travel over the drier environment. ====

==== Like other camelids of its time, the //Palaeolama mirifica//lived and travelled in small herds. This would have enabled safety and security from predators, like the //[|Similodon fatalis], // along with the ease of finding a mate when it came to mating season.====

==== The //Palaeolama mirifica// lived in a dry, arid environment so it can be assumed that it had a shorter coat of fur that that of the modern day //lama glama//. This allowed the //Palaeolama mirifica// to be protected from the winds but also keep it cool in the heat of the savannah-plains. ====

==== There are many theories as to why this species became extinct. One of the theories is that they had all been hunted into extinction by humans (which is the least plausible of all the theories). One of the more likely is the fact that the //Palaeolama mirifica// had succumbed to the drastic changes of the tectonic plates as they shifted to form the continents that we have today thus not being able to adapt to the much more climatically different environment. ====

Bibliography

DENNIS R. RUEZ, J. (2005, 10). EARLIEST RECORD OF PALAEOLAMA (MAMMALIA, CAMELIDAE) WITH COMMENTS ON. Retrieved 6th June, 2011, from https://edocs.uis.edu/druez2/www/publications/PalaeolamaJVP.pdf Thulman, D. (N/A). WHOSE TOOTH IS THIS? Retrieved June 20th, 2011, from http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/vertpaleo/resources/fossil_id/art_id.htm The Paleobiology Database. (n.d.). The Paleobiology Database. Retrieved June 20, 2011, from http://paleodb.org/cgi-bin/bridge.pl?action=checkTaxonInfo&taxon_no The Paleobiology Database. (n.d.). The Paleobiology Database. Retrieved June 23, 2011, from http://paleodb.org/cgi-bin/bridge.pl?action=checkTaxonInfo&taxon_no = L'Arca di Noe. "L'Arca di Noè :: Shop online of naturalistic items." // L'Arca di Noè :: Shop online of naturalistic items //. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 June 2011. " Camel LLama Fossils." // Fossils in Florida: Prehistoric Animals found in Florida. // . N.p., n.d. Web. 21 June 2011. .)/Palaeolama+mirifica+%281%29+-+tooth/14932>.