Homunculus

Homunculus is an extinct genus of New World monkey that lived in Patagonia during the Miocene. Two species are known: Homunculus patagonicus and Homunculus vizcainoi, which are known from material found in the Santa Cruz Formation in the far south of Argentina. Reaching a latitude of ~55°S at the time it lived, it is the southernmost non-human primate ever recorded.

Homunculus

Jonathan M.G. Perry, Sergio F. Vizcaíno, M. Susana Bargo, Néstor Toledo, Kellyn Sanders, Edwin Dickinson, Paul E. Mor… · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
HomunculidaePBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB, for Primates
Life habit
arborealPBDB, for Primates
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At least 3.7 million years on record.

The record covers at least 17.5 Mya to 13.8 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 21 Mya to 11 Mya.

Miocene — about 23 of 23 occurrencesMiocene21–21 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences21–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 6 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 6 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 6 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 1 occurrence14–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences17.5 Mya13.8 Mya21.5 Mya10.5 Mya

23 occurrences of Homunculus on record, most of them in the Miocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

23 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

2 formations

Santa Cruz — 51.57°S, 69.47°WSanta Cruz — 51.20°S, 69.12°WSanta Cruz — 50.16°S, 69.67°WSanta Cruz — 50.00°S, 70.00°WSanta Cruz — 50.60°S, 69.08°WSanta Cruz — 50.32°S, 68.90°WSanta Cruz — 51.05°S, 69.13°WSanta Cruz — 50.95°S, 69.20°WSanta Cruz — 50.36°S, 71.84°WSanta Cruz — 50.28°S, 70.22°WSanta Cruz — 50.05°S, 70.44°WSanta Cruz — 51.57°S, 69.42°WSarmiento — 45.67°S, 68.71°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Homunculus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Homunculus and its relatives

Miocene

Where Homunculus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

192 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 17 sites for Homunculus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

11 references

Each of the 23 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content3

Picture of Homunculus

Credit
Jonathan M.G. Perry, Sergio F. Vizcaíno, M. Susana Bargo, Néstor Toledo, Kellyn Sanders, Edwin Dickinson, Paul E. Mor…
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Homunculus patagonicus · mpm:pv:19426

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itHomunculidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Ameghino 1891