page_title: List of mammals of South America
section_title: Order: Perissodactyla (odd-toed ungulates)
hierarchical_section_title: List of mammals of South America / Subclass: Theria / Infraclass: Eutheria / Superorder: Laurasiatheria / Order: Perissodactyla (odd-toed ungulates)
caption_attribution_description: Tapirus terrestris
context_page_description: This is a list of the native wild mammal species recorded in South America. South America's terrestrial mammals fall into three distinct groups: "old-timers", African immigrants and recent North American immigrants. The marsupials and xenarthrans are "old-timers", their ancestors having been present on the continent since at least the very early Cenozoic Era. During the early Cenozoic, South America's only land connection was to Antarctica, so it was effectively cut off from most of the world; as the fragments of Gondwana continued to separate, this connection was lost, leaving South America an island continent. Caviomorph rodents and monkeys arrived as "waif dispersers" by rafting across the Atlantic from Africa in the Eocene epoch, 35 million or more years ago. All the remaining nonflying mammals of South America are recent arrivals, having migrated from North America via Central America during the past seven million years as part of the Great American Interchange; this invasion, which peaked around three million years ago, was made possible when the formation of the volcanic Isthmus of Panama bridged North and South America.
context_section_description: The odd-toed ungulates are browsing and grazing mammals. They are usually large to very large, and have relatively simple stomachs and a large middle toe. Following the interchange with North America, South America's odd-toed ungulates included equids of genus Equus as well as tapirs. Equids died out in both North and South America around the time of the first arrival of humans, while tapirs died out in most of North America but survived in Central and South America. South America also once had a great diversity of ungulates of native origin, but these dwindled after the interchange with North America, and disappeared entirely following the arrival of humans. Sequencing of collagen from fossils of one recently extinct species each of notoungulates and litopterns has indicated that these orders comprise a sister group to the perissodactyls. If, as some evidence suggests, perissodactyls originated in India, both ungulate groups may have been of Gondwanan origin, despite being laurasiatheres.
  Family: Tapiridae (tapirs)
  Genus: Tapirus
  Baird's tapir, Tapirus bairdii EN
  Little black tapir, Tapirus kabomani
  Mountain tapir, Tapirus pinchaque EN
  Lowland tapir, Tapirus terrestris VU
caption: Lowland tapir
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