Mammal
Macrauchenia
The best known species is Macrauchenia patachonica.
Macrauchenia was one of the last members of a distinctive South American mammal group.
Three stages. One companion.
Game artwork
AI-generated, stylized game illustrations. These designs and growth stages are imaginative, not scientific reconstructions.
Macrauchenia at a glance
- Diet
- Herbivore
- A plant-based diet is inferred from its anatomy and comparisons with related animals; not all herbivores ate the same plants.
- When it lived
- Neogene / Quaternary
- Group
- Macraucheniidae
- Macraucheniids
- Fossil locations
- Peru, Patagonia
- Places where fossils have been found
Beyond the game
The real Macrauchenia
It was one of the last litopterns, a lineage of hoofed mammals native to South America. Its evolutionary history was separate from that of horses, camels and other hoofed mammals that reached the continent later.
The best-known species is Macrauchenia patachonica. It was neither an unusual horse nor a camel: it belonged to the litopterns, a group with a different evolutionary history.
This grouping describes evolutionary relationships. Its members share ancestors; they do not form a chain in which one must turn into another.
Fossil discoveries
Selected fossil records · present-day map
Map references
Map: Natural Earth, public domain. Fossil records: linked collections and publications.Sources & text credits
Explore the references behind this profile.
- Macrauchenia
Wikipedia contributors · Spanish source
Educational text adapted and translated from this article by Wikipedia contributors. The revision link, when captured in the source catalogue, identifies the source version.
- Macrauchenia
Wikipedia contributors · English source
Educational text adapted and translated from this article by Wikipedia contributors. The revision link, when captured in the source catalogue, identifies the source version.
- Macraucheniidae
Wikipedia contributors · English source
Educational text adapted and translated from this article by Wikipedia contributors. The revision link, when captured in the source catalogue, identifies the source version.
- Relatives of perissodactyls
Wikipedia contributors · English source
Educational text adapted and translated from this article by Wikipedia contributors. The revision link, when captured in the source catalogue, identifies the source version.
Educational text adapted in English from the existing Wikipedia-backed Dinosgacha catalogue and linked articles by Wikipedia contributors.
Existing English translations have been selected and arranged for this encyclopedia. Repeated period and diet text is omitted where those fields already carry it. Unknown facts remain unfilled; unreviewed geological age phrases are omitted and period labels replace numerical ages.
The adapted educational text is available under CC BY-SA 4.0. This text license does not apply to the game illustrations.