Unmasked: A creature that puzzled Darwin

Its nose, unlike that of most mammals, was right between the eyes, like an elephant’s trunk.

It weighed about as much as a horse.

Its neck was long, leading scientists to believe that this strange creature discovered almost two centuries ago in South America could be an oversized llama.

But Macrauchenia patachonica was neither a llama nor a horse, nor an elephant, a new analysis of its fossils shows.

What this creature was puzzled scientists, including the father of evolution, Charles Darwin.

Its origin and what happened to its species had largely remained a mystery — until now.

Scientists from the University of Potsdam in Germany and the American Museum of Natural History analyzed DNA extracted from a fossil found in a cave in southern Chile. Here’s what they discovered: Macrauchenia is a distant relative of horses, rhinos and tapirs.

“We were able to, for the first time using DNA evidence, place a very weird mammal in its proper evolutionary context,” said Ross MacPhee, a curator for the American Museum of Natural History and one of the leaders of the study published last week.

Darwin discovered the first Macrauchenia and Toxodon fossils in 1834 during his travels to South America. He found Macrauchenia on the southern coast of Argentina.

And while in Uruguay, he heard about a farmer who dug up “some extremely strange beast” and went to check it out, MacPhee said.

That animal was Toxodon, which was about twice the size of Macrauchenia.

It had curved teeth, similar to that of a rodent.

It was about the same size as a rhino, had very short legs, a huge body and an enormous skull, MacPhee said.