Aepycamelus is an extinctgenus of camelids within the Lamini tribe that lived during the Miocene 20.6–4.9 million years ago, existing for about 15.7 million years.[1] Its name is derived from the Homeric Greekαἰπύς, "high and steep" and κάμηλος – "camel";[2][3] thus, "high camel"; alticamelus in Latin.
Aepycamelus spp. walked on their toes only. Unlike earlier species of camelids, they possessed cushioned pads like those of modern camels.[4]
Taxonomy
Aepycamelus was formerly referred to the genus Alticamelus, which Matthew (1901) erected for "Procamelus" altus Marsh, 1894, a camel species described from a calcaneum found in Neogene deposits in Oregon, after he referred a complete skeleton of a tall camel from Colorado to that species. Matthew and Cook (1909) erected Alticamelus giraffinus for the Colorado specimen after recognizing the A. altus holotype as indeterminate.[5][6] MacDonald (1956) recognized Alticamelus as a nomen dubium and erected Aepycamelus for species previously assigned to Alticamelus.[7]
Aepycamelus was a prairie dweller of North America (Colorado, etc.). It was a highly specialized animal. Its head was relatively small compared with the rest of its body, its neck was long, as a result of giraffe-like lengthening of the cervical vertebrae, and its legs were long and stilt-like, with the elbow and knee joints on the same level. The top of its head was about 3 m (9.8 ft) above the ground.[4]
Its strange body structure gives information on its mode of life and habits. Aepycamelus obviously inhabited dry grasslands with groups of trees. It is presumed to have moved about singly or in small groups, like today's giraffes, and like them, browsed high up in the trees. In this respect, it had no competitors. It survived a relatively long time, through most of the Miocene epoch, and died out prior to the start of the Pliocene, possibly due to climatic changes.[8]
^ abPalmer, D., ed. (1999). The Marshall Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Animals. London: Marshall Editions. p. 277. ISBN978-1-84028-152-1.
^W. D. Matthew. 1901. Fossil mammals of the Tertiary of northeastern Colorado: American Museum collection of 1898. Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History 1(7):353-447
^Matthew, W.D., and Cook, H.J., 1909, A Pliocene fauna from western Nebraska: American Museum of Natural History Bulletin, v. 26, art. 2, p. 361-414.
^J. R. Macdonald. 1956. A new Clarendonian mammalian fauna from the Truckee Formation of western Nevada. Journal of Paleontology 30(1):186-202.
^Flannery, T. (2001). The Eternal Frontier: an ecological history of North America and its peoples. New York: Grove Press. p. 111. ISBN0-8021-3888-8.
