The genus is only known from a single jawbone with some teeth, found by
Texas Petroleum in 1945, a specimen approximately in length, recovered from the Late Eocene middle part of the
Gualanday Group on the San Pedro
finca, Alto San José,
Chaparral, Tolima. The teeth, molars and premolars of a kind known as bilophodont, which are present in the pyrotheres - were considered as evidence that this genus could be an ancestor of the advanced pyrotheres as
Pyrotherium.
Colombitherium has first been described by
Hoffstetter in 1970, The detailed descriptions by Billet
et al. show the differences between
Colombitherium and other pyrotherians: the features of the bilophodont teeth of Colombitherium are actually found in several groups of placental mammals, which implies that
Colombitherium and another possibly related taxon,
Proticia could not be part of Pyrotheria. The authors maintain "the referral of
Colombitherium to Pyrotheria is therefore weakly supported, and it must be considered as highly hypothetical." In any case, the lack of further evidence means that
Colombitherium and
Proticia must be classified in a separate
family,
Colombitheriidae which is tentatively classified as a primitive
clade in
Pyrotheria. Also the absolute age of the strata where the fossil jawbone has been found is questioned. The age has been originally defined by De Porta in 1962 on the basis of the
pollen Verrucatosporites usmensis and
Cicatricosisporites sp. The last occurrence of
Echitriporites trianguliformis orbicularis indicates a Late Eocene to
Early Oligocene age for the upper layers of the Gualanday Group. == See also ==