Patriarchus

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Patriarchus is an extinct small mammal from the interatheriid notoungulates that lived during the Early Miocene in what is now Argentina. Fossils have been found in the Santa Cruz Formation of southern Patagonia, from the Rio Bote locality.

This animal was about 40 centimeters long (not counting the tail) and looked like a rabbit or marmot, with a pointed muzzle. It shared many features with Protypotherium and is often confused with it, but its teeth show differences. Specifically, the first lower incisor and the lower canine were expanded at the tip, labially convex, with a short groove on the tongue side and a V-shaped top view. The first lower premolar was bilobed, with the trigonid larger than the thalonid, and the teeth between the first incisor and the first premolar did not overlap.

Patriarchus palmidens is the type species, described in 1889 by Florentino Ameghino from Early Miocene rocks in the Santa Cruz Formation at the Rio Bote locality. Ameghino also described several other species that were later treated as Protypotherium. In 2019, a cladistic analysis found enough differences between Patriarchus palmidens and Protypotherium to re-establish Patriarchus as a separate genus. Today, Patriarchus includes only the type species and is considered a derived member of the Interatheriidae, closely related to Miocochilius, with Cochilius and Interatherium forming a sister group.