The Deseado Formation of PatagoniaLoomis, Frederic Brewster
Science
The Deseado Formation of Patagonia
Loomis, Frederic Brewster
Paleontology -- Patagonia (Argentina and Chile)
For such a heavy animal, the humerus is extraordinarily long and
slender. The sessile head is strongly compressed from side to side,
very convex, and much larger than the glenoid fossa, its articular
surface extending onto the base of the greater tuberosity. This
tuberosity is heavy and thick, but does not project above the head. The
powerful deltoid ridge extends from the tuberosity two-thirds of the
way down the shaft. The shaft is unusually slender. Distally it expands
laterally to make the two large epicondyles, of nearly equal size. The
trochlea is relatively narrow, the internal surface being the narrower,
and rising to a high margin; while the external portion is wider,
rounded, and has a low margin. The supratrochlear fossa is moderately
deep, the anconeal fossa somewhat deeper, but there is no connecting
foramen.
Gaudry[17] figures a radius and ulna, both relatively long bones,
and closely apposed; so that there was no possibility of a rotary
motion of the forearm. The proximal end of the radius is expanded, so
that its articular surface is in contact with the full width of the
humeral trochlea on the anterior side. Below, the bone contracts to
a moderately slender shaft, and then expands distally into a heavy
club-like distal end. The ulna has a short but heavy olecranon process,
with a prominent coronoid process. The sigmoid notch is shallow, but
the articular surface expands on both sides, so that it covers the full
width of the humeral trochlea on the posterior side. Distally the ulna
is not so heavy as the radius.
[Footnote 17: Anal. Palaeontologie, t. 1, p. 5, 1906.]
Under the name _Pyrotherium romeri_, Ameghino[18] figures a carpus and
metacarpus, which Tournier[19] however assigns to _Parastrapotherium_,
probably _P. herculeum_; and figures a carpus and metacarpus of the
same type, but smaller, which he attributes to _Parastrapotherium_.
I, however, can not see how such a small foot can belong to so large
an animal, and feel that, until evidence of direct association
is given, it is best not to consider these feet as belonging to
_Parastrapotherium_, but rather to _Pyrotherium_.
[Footnote 18: Bol. Inst. Geog. Argen., t. 18, p. 442, fig. 25, 1897.]
[Footnote 19: Bul. Soc. Geol. France, ser. 4, t. 5, p. 305, 1905.]
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