Hemiauchenia is a genus of lamine camelids that evolved in North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 in the Miocene

Miocene

The Miocene is a geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about . The Miocene was named by Sir Charles Lyell. Its name comes from the Greek words and and means "less recent" because it has 18% fewer modern sea invertebrates than the Pliocene. The Miocene follows the Oligocene...

 period approximately 10 million years ago. This genus diversified and moved to South America in the early Pleistocene

Pleistocene

The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....

 as part of the Great American Interchange

Great American Interchange

The Great American Interchange was an important paleozoogeographic event in which land and freshwater fauna migrated from North America via Central America to South America and vice versa, as the volcanic Isthmus of Panama rose up from the sea floor and bridged the formerly separated continents...

, giving rise to modern lamines

Lama (genus)

Lama is the modern genus name for two South American camelids, the wild guanaco and the domesticated llama. This genus is closely allied to the wild vicuña and domesticated alpaca of the genus Vicugna. Before the Spanish conquest of the Americas, llamas and alpacas were the only domesticated...

. The genus went extinct

Quaternary extinction event

The Quaternary period saw the extinctions of numerous predominantly larger, especially megafaunal, species, many of which occurred during the transition from the Pleistocene to the Holocene epoch. However, the extinction wave did not stop at the end of the Pleistocene, but continued especially on...

 at the end of the Pleistocene.

Remains of these species have been found in assorted locations around North America including: Florida, Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, Arizona, Mexico, California, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado and Washington. The "large-headed llama", H. macrocephala, was widely distributed in N. and Central America, with H. vera being known from the western U. S. and northern Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

. H. minima has been found in Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

, and H. guanajuatensis in Mexico.

Distinguishing characteristics of members of Hemiauchenia

vera:

• Relatively low-crowned teeth

• Large caniniform upper P1

• Retention of lower P3

blancoensis:

• Shorter mandibular diastema than macrocephala but shorter than vera

• Canniform upper P1

• Absent P2

• Upper P3 present or absent

• Lower crowned molars

macrocephala:

• Long, robust limbs

• Large skeletal size

• Presence of a deciduous upper P2

• Fully molariform deciduous P2

• High-crowned molars

• Thick layer of cementum on the teeth

• Broad mandibular symphasis with incisors in a vertical fashion

minima:

• Despite being the earliest recognized species, general distinguishing characteristics for H. minima are little known.

There are also a few lesser known species such as: H. paradoxa, H. seymourensis, H. edensis and H. guanajuatensis. According to which source is consulted, these may or may not be considered legitimate taxa.