Falcontoxodon
Falcontoxodon is an extinct monotypic genus of toxodontid, who lived from the late Pliocene to the Pleistocene in what is now Venezuela. Fossils of this genus have been found in the Chapadmalalan-Uquian Codore Formation, as well as in the more recent Ensenadan San Gregorio Formation. Description. The genus "Falcontoxodon" was established in 2018 by Carrillo "et al" with AMU-CURS 765, an almost complete skull with a well-preserved dentition found in the Algodones Member of the Codore Formation. In the same article, two other specimens assigned to "Falcontoxodon" were described from the Vergel Member of the San  Gregorio Formation, assigned respectively to "Falcontoxodon" aff. "aguilerai" and "Falcontoxodon" sp. In 2021, an analysis of the San Gregorio Formation by Carrillo-Briceño "et al" uncovered thirty-three additional remains, mostly teeth, that were assigned to the genus. The name of the genus, "Falcontoxodon", refers to its relative, "Toxodon", and to the Venezuelan state of Falcón in Northern Venezuela, where the holotype remains have been found. The species' name, "aguillerai", honours the Venezuelan paleontologist Orangel Aguilera. "Falcontoxodon" was a medium-sized Toxodontinae, estimated to have weighted around 800 kg, roughly half the weight of "Toxodon". It had a pear-shaped , 55 cm long skull in frontal view, with an elongated nasal. The third upper incisor was absent and the canine was reduced. The lower molars were hypsodont, and the second lower incisor was developed like a tusk. Phylogeny. The 2018 study that described "Falcontoxodon" recovers it, along with "Mixotoxodon", "Gyrinodon" and "Piauhytherium", on the same monophyletic clade within Toxodontinae. Below is a parsimony tree establishing the relationships between the genera of Toxodontidae, as proposed by Carrillo "et al", 2018. Palaeoecology. "Falcontoxodon" lived in a tropical environment in an area of northern South America that was left relatively untouched by the  Great American Interchange, the only non-native species of mammal known in the area of the Falcón Basin being the procyonid "Cyonasua" and "Chapalmalania", and, potentially, a Camelidae still unassigned to a specific genus. Its environment was continental, an open, forested grassland area with rainforest elements, near freshwater. It coexisted with pampatheres such as "Holmesina" and "Plaina", proterotheriidae, the glyptodont "Boreostemma", the dasypodidae "Pliodasypus" and the ground sloth "Eremotherium", as well as several species of caviomorph rodents such as "Caviodon", "Hydrochoeropsis", "Marisela" and "Neoepiblema", and the crocodile "Crocodylus falconensis.