Your Daily Fossil

Patriomanis - The American Pangolin

NOTE: Second image is NOT a reconstruction, but a photo of a modern pangolin. To the best of my knowledge no reconstruction of Patriomanis has been done. 

When: Late Eocene (~35 mya )

Where: Wyoming, USA

What: Patriomanis is a pangolin. Pangolins are commonly know as scaly anteaters; their scales are made from keratin, the same material as finger nails. Patriomanis is not the most well known or studied of the fossil pangolins, but it is the only one known from the western hemisphere. As modern pangolins (the order Pholidota) are found exclusively in Asia and Africa, this was an extremely surprising discovery. All other fossil pangolins (both older and younger) are known from the old world, Patriomanis represents an immigration event to the new world which left no descendants. When compared to extant pangolins, Patriomanis has a more generalized post-cranial skeleton, not specially adapted for either digging or climbing trees. Though there are no scales preserved with any of the known material, more basal members of Pholidota recovered from the german fossil locality of Messel have evidence of scales, albeit more limited than in the modern forms. Therefore, it is highly likely the american pangolin was scaly as well.  

This find was so unexpected that the first specimen of Patriomanis was not recognized as a pangolin for several years after its discovery and collection by field crews from the American Museum of Natural History. The material was found in a drawer in the collections of this museum by then graduate student Robert Emry (who went on to later become a curator at the Smithsonian). The skull was labeled a ”immature ? carnivore” and that was the extent of the previous attempts to identify the material. Emry thought the skull was very reminiscent of South American anteaters when he first examined it, but further studies lead him to concluded this was instead an example of an old world clade in North America.  As this was a very bold claim at the time, he was advised to be extremely sure of what he was saying before he published. An in-depth study of the partial skull and postcranial elements lead to a pangolin attribution as the only possible conclusion.  Dozens of studies of pangolins since the initial publication of Patriomanis in 1970 have only reinforced this allocation. The specimen was collected in 1957, and if it was not for Emry’s investigation into fossils from this locality for an unrelated project, it might still be sitting there in the ‘misc.’ bone drawer today.