Catagonus
Genus of mammals
Catagonus is a genus of peccaries that contains the living Chacoan peccary, C. wagneri, and several extinct species. The genus has always been restricted to South America.
01Taxonomy
Catagonus is notable in that the type species, C. metropolitanus, is extinct; the living Chacoan peccary was first described in 1930 from subfossil remains, and only found alive by scientists in 1972 (an example of a Lazarus taxon).
A 2017 study on the phylogenetic systematics of Tayassuidae species suggests that Catagonus should only contain C. metropolitanus. The extinct narrow-headed peccary (C. stenocephalus) should be moved into Brasiliochoerus, while the Chacoan peccary, C. bonaerensis, and C. carlesi should be placed in Parachoerus. If this is accepted, then Catagonus becomes an extinct genus once more.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Catagonus”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Catagonus wagneri closeup.jpg by TimVickers, Public domain
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