An incomplete fossilized cranium that has sat within the collections of the Pure Historical past Museum of Denmark for the reason that nineteenth century has turned out to signify a beforehand unrecognized species of glyptodont (genus Glyptotherium) that after roamed South America.
Paleo-Indians searching a glyptodont, a relative of the armadillo that lived throughout the Pleistocene epoch. By Heinrich More durable, 1920.
The newly named species, Glyptotherium deuterophractum, lived between 60,000 and 17,000 years in the past in a swath of South America stretching from Brazil to Venezuela.
The animal was a kind of glyptodont, the extinct clade of big, closely armored relations of recent armadillos, a few of which grew to the dimensions of a small automotive.
“Among the many mammals of the Xenarthra clade recognized from the Brazilian Pleistocene, big sloths and glyptodonts stand out within the fossil file,” mentioned Universidade Federal de Pernambuco paleontologist Édison Vicente Oliveira and colleagues.
“The latter included armored herbivores characterised by a non-banded dermal bone carapace, fusion inside the lumbar vertebral column, trilobed enamel, amongst others.”
The holotype cranium of Glyptotherium deuterophractum was collected within the nineteenth century by Danish naturalist Peter Wilhelm Lund on the well-known Lagoa Santa caves in Brazil.
Catalogued as NHMD 2045557, the specimen was later examined by one other Danish scientist, Johannes Reinhardt, who in 1875 categorised it as ‘Schistopleurum euphractum.’
In a brand new research, Dr. Vicente Oliveira and his co-authors in contrast the cranium’s cranial options in addition to glyptodont enamel, ankle bones and armor plates known as osteoderms from Brazil and Venezuela with these of recognized glyptodont species from North and Central America.
They concluded the Brazilian animal was distinct sufficient to warrant its personal title, Glyptotherium deuterophractum.
The species occurred in northeastern, southeastern, and northern Brazil, and its vary prolonged into northern South America.
“Glyptotherium deuterophractum is recorded in southeastern Brazil, within the states of Minas Gerais and São Paulo; in northeastern Brazil, within the states of Rio Grande do Norte, Pernambuco, Piauí, and Alagoas; and in northern Brazil, within the states of Tocantins and Amazonas,” they mentioned.
“The species can be recorded from northwestern Venezuela, within the state of Falcón.”
The invention underscores how a lot stays to be realized from museum collections gathered generations in the past, and the way outdated taxonomic assumptions can obscure biodiversity that was, in impact, hiding in plain sight.
“The outline of this new Brazilian glyptodontine species highlights the necessity for a extra detailed comparability of the Venezuelan and Brazilian supplies with the Glyptotherium cylindricum hypodigm,” the paleontologists mentioned.
Their paper was printed August 15 within the Journal of Mammalian Evolution.
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É.V. Oliveira et al. 2026. The uncared for Reinhardt’s glyptodontine from Lagoa Santa, Brazil: a reassessment of taxonomic standing and outline of a brand new species of Glyptotherium. J. Mamm. Evol 33, 41; doi: 10.1007/s10914-026-09836-0
