Description

Toxodon platensis — The Toxodon was a massive, barrel-bodied notoungulate that roamed the open grasslands, river valleys, and wetlands of South America during the Late Pleistocene. Standing about 1.5 m tall at the shoulder and up to 2.7 m long, it weighed between 1,000 – 1,400 kg. Its skull bore high-crowned teeth adapted to grinding coarse vegetation, and its broad snout and upward-facing nostrils hint at a semi-aquatic lifestyle, though it was likely a mixed grazer-brower inhabiting both wetland and savanna environments.

Toxodon lived alongside other South American megafauna such as Macrauchenia, Glyptodon, and Smilodon populator. DNA and collagen analysis place it among the unique South American ungulates whose lineage diverged early from that of modern hoofed mammals. It disappeared around 12,000 years ago, during the terminal Pleistocene extinction wave that claimed many large mammals of the Americas.