Macrauchenia Plastic Toy

Not QUITE a tapir...not QUITE a camel...

Our Plastic Macrauchenia Replica

Our small plastic macrauchenia toy is a great little replica for any fan of Ice Age animals. It is just the right size replica for your prehistoric life or Ice Age shoebox diorama. This little Macrauchenia model will fit in a shoe box along with other examples of extinct animals from the Earth's past. Add a few rocks, plants, grass, make a river or stream from anything that strikes your imagination, and there you go - a scene of life on our planet as it might have been many thousands of years ago. Our plastic toy Pleistocene mammal is painted to look the way paleontologists imagine the animal looked in real life, although of course nobody really knows. That's part of the fun and mystery – you can imagine Macrauchenia any way you like! It is made of solid plastic and is quite durable. The name "Macrauchenia" is molded onto the bottom of the animal. Be sure to take a look at our other prehistoric figurines.

About Macrauchenia

The first fossils of Macrauchenia was discovered by Charles Darwin in South America. Macrauchenia was an ungulate mammal that lived until approximately 15,000 years ago. It resembled a humpless camel with a short trunk, but is not related to either camels nor elephants. Rather, Macrauchenia is related to no modern animal…with its extinction, it ended the evolutionary line of its Order (Litopterna).

Macrauchenia weighed about 1000 kg and was about 10 feet long. The most unique feature of this mammal is the placement of its nostrils on top of its skull, rather than in front. While early scientists theorized that these nostrils were used like a snorkel (implying Macrauchenia was primarily aquatic), most scientists now believe the nostrils were the base of a short trunk, which would protect them from the dust of its native savannahs.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.