An article published in the journal “Nature Communications” describes a genetic research on Macrauchenia patachonica, a mammal that lived in South America between 7 million and 20,000 years ago. A team of researchers managed to extract mitochondrial DNA from a fossil discovered in southern Chile and compared it to that of other mammals establishing that the closest relatives to the genus Macrauchenia are perissodactyls, the order to which horses, rhinos and tapirs belong.