Xenokeryx amidalae was a paleomericid, a type of herbivore from the Miocene that lived in Europe and Asia between 18 and 11 million years ago. Paleontologists related these animals to dromomericids, distant ancestors of deer , but a new study of fossils found in the mid-1990s at the La Retama site (Cuenca) has turned this association around. The combination of the morphological data of these remains with the DNA of current ruminants has established that paleomericids have more to do with giraffes.
One of the authors of this work, published in PLOS ONE, is Israel M. Sánchez, collaborator of the National Museum of Natural Sciences. In statements to EFE, Sánchez explained that “we had a whole group of ruminants in the phylogenetic limbo, but this finding was so well preserved that it put all the pieces of the puzzle in their place and allowed us to describe many important characters, something that is not known. had never done. Now we know that this species grew until it became the first phylogeny of paleomericids, which we now know have two lineages: one related to the genus Ampelomeryx and the other to the new Xenokeryx ” .
As Sánchez has told EFE, these peculiar ruminants had “two types of horns: two frontal, similar to those of giraffes and a posterior one, which starts at the nape of the neck .” Males sported long fangs and two osicons, a hair-covered cranial appendage located above the eyes, as in today’s giraffes. The bifurcated bone structure that protruded from the nape had a function unknown to paleontologists, who speculate that it could be related to defense, courtship and fights for females.
Xenokeryx amidalae’s “quirks” are not limited to its anatomy. Its name means “strange horn of Amidala”, and refers to the resemblance of its posterior bony appendage with one of the hairstyles of Queen Amidala , a character from the Star Wars movies .
Image : Reconstruction of X. amidalae. Credit : Illustration by Israel M. Sánchez.
