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Uintathere
Uintatheriidae is a family of extinct ungulate mammals that includes ''Uintatherium''. Uintatheres belong to the order Dinocerata, one of several extinct orders of primitive hoofed mammals that are sometimes united in the Condylarthra. Uintatheres were the largest land animals of their time, surviving from the late Paleocene into the Uintan Epoch of the Middle Eocene. They were heavy animals, with thick legs, massive bones, broad feet, and tiny brains. The most distinctive feature of the great majority of species, however, was the presence of multiple blunt "horns", perhaps similar to the ossicones of modern giraffes, and the presence of large, sabre-like canine teeth. They were eventually replaced as large browsing animals by the even larger brontotheres. Genera Family Uintatheriidae * Subfamily Uintatheriinae ** Genus ''Bathyopsis'' ** Genus ''Eobasileus'' ** Genus ''Prodinoceras'' ** Genus ''Tetheopsis'' ** Genus ''Uintatherium'' * Subfamily Gobiatheriinae ** Genus ''Gob ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prodinoceras
''Prodinoceras'' ("Before Terrible Horns") is the earliest known uintathere genus, which lived in the late Paleocene of Mongolia. It was a relatively small uintathere, reaching in length. It is also regarded as the most basal uintathere, as, although it had the characteristic fang-like tusks, it had yet to evolve the characteristic knob-like horns. It is very similar to the North American '' Probathyopsis'', which experts regard as its sister genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom .... References Dinoceratans Paleocene genus extinctions Fossils of Mongolia Prehistoric placental genera {{paleo-mammal-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eobasileus
''Eobasileus cornutus'' ("horned dawn-king") was a prehistoric species of dinocerate mammal. Description About long, and standing some tall at the shoulder, with a weight estimated to be around , ''Eobasilius'' was the largest uintathere. It looked much like the related '' Uintatherium''. Like ''Uintatherium'', it had three pairs of blunt horns on its skull, possibly covered with skin like the ossicones of a giraffe. The frontal pair may have been composed of keratin, like the horn(s) of a rhinoceros. ''Eobasileus'' also had a pair of tusks shielded by bony protrusions of the lower jaw. A dispute over ''Eobasilius'' specifically and the uintatheres more generally helped to spark the Bone Wars between Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh. Cope, Marsh, and Joseph Leidy independently discovered specimens from related species—though Cope and Marsh believed they had each discovered the same species—in the Fort Bridger area, leading to disputes over naming rights ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uintatherium
''Uintatherium'' ("Beast of the Uinta Mountains") is an extinct genus of herbivorous mammal that lived during the Eocene epoch. Two species are currently recognized: ''U. anceps'' from the United States during the Early to Middle Eocene (56–38 million years ago) and ''U. insperatus'' of Middle to Late Eocene (48–34 million years ago) China. Description ''Uintatherium'' was a large browsing animal. With a skull long, tall at the shoulder, body length of about and a weight up to 2 tonnes, it was similar to today's rhinoceros, both in size and in shape. Its legs were robust to sustain the weight of the animal and were equipped with hooves. Moreover, a Uintathere's sternum was made up of horizontal segments, unlike today's rhinos, which have compressed vertical segments. Skull Its most unusual feature was the skull, which is both large and strongly built, but simultaneously flat and concave: this feature is rare and, apart from some brontotheres, not regularly characteristic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bathyopsis
''Bathyopsis'' is an extinct genus of uintathere. It lived in North America during the Eocene The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''ēṓs'', .... Description This animal reached high. References Further reading * Lucas, S.G. and R.M. Schoch. 1998. Dinocerata. pp. 284–291 ''in'' C.M. Janis, K.M. Scott, and L.L. Jacobs (''eds.'') ''Evolution of Tertiary Mammals of North America'' Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. * ''The Beginning of the Age of Mammals'' by Kenneth D. Rose Dinoceratans Extinct mammals of North America Fossil taxa described in 1881 Prehistoric placental genera {{paleo-mammal-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gobiatherium
''Gobiatherium'' (meaning "Beast of the Gobi Desert") was one of the last Uintatheres, from the Mid Eocene of Mongolia. Unlike its North American cousins, ''Uintatherium'' or ''Eobasileus'', ''Gobiatherium'' lacked knob-like horns, or even fang-like tusks. Instead, it had enlarged cheekbone In the human skull, the zygomatic bone (from grc, ζῠγόν, zugón, yoke), also called cheekbone or malar bone, is a paired irregular bone which articulates with the maxilla, the temporal bone, the sphenoid bone and the frontal bone. It is si ...s and an almost spherical snout. Because of the noticeable lack of many diagnostic uintathere features (the horns and tusks), the genus is placed within its own subfamily, "Gobiatheriinae", though some experts prefer to rank it as the family "Gobiatheriidae". References *Cheng Jie & Ma Aneheng: ''New mammalian materials from the Eocene of the Liguanqiao basin.'' Vertebrata PalAsiatica 28, 1990, S. 228–244. * McKenna, M.C. & Bell, S.K. Cl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eocene Extinctions
The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''ēṓs'', "dawn") and (''kainós'', "new") and refers to the "dawn" of modern ('new') fauna that appeared during the epoch. The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Paleocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the Eocene is marked by a brief period in which the concentration of the carbon isotope 13C in the atmosphere was exceptionally low in comparison with the more common isotope 12C. The end is set at a major extinction event called the ''Grande Coupure'' (the "Great Break" in continuity) or the Eocene–Oligocene extinction event, which may be related to the impact of one or more large bolides in Siberia and in what is now Chesapeake Bay. As with other geologic periods, the strata that define the start and end of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eocene Mammals
The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''ēṓs'', "dawn") and (''kainós'', "new") and refers to the "dawn" of modern ('new') fauna that appeared during the epoch. The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Paleocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the Eocene is marked by a brief period in which the concentration of the carbon isotope 13C in the atmosphere was exceptionally low in comparison with the more common isotope 12C. The end is set at a major extinction event called the ''Grande Coupure'' (the "Great Break" in continuity) or the Eocene–Oligocene extinction event, which may be related to the impact of one or more large bolides in Siberia and in what is now Chesapeake Bay. As with other geologic periods, the strata that define the start and end of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paleocene Mammals
The Paleocene, ( ) or Palaeocene, is a geological epoch that lasted from about 66 to 56 million years ago (mya). It is the first epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name is a combination of the Ancient Greek ''palaiós'' meaning "old" and the Eocene Epoch (which succeeds the Paleocene), translating to "the old part of the Eocene". The epoch is bracketed by two major events in Earth's history. The K–Pg extinction event, brought on by an asteroid impact and possibly volcanism, marked the beginning of the Paleocene and killed off 75% of living species, most famously the non-avian dinosaurs. The end of the epoch was marked by the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), which was a major climatic event wherein about 2,500–4,500 gigatons of carbon were released into the atmosphere and ocean systems, causing a spike in global temperatures and ocean acidification. In the Paleocene, the continents of the Northern Hemisphere were still connected via s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tetheopsis
''Tetheopsis'' is an extinct genus of Uintatheriidae. References Taxa named by Edward Drinker Cope Dinoceratans Fossil taxa described in 1885 Prehistoric placental genera {{Paleo-mammal-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brontothere
Brontotheriidae is a family (biology), family of extinct mammals belonging to the order Perissodactyla, the order that includes horses, rhinoceroses, and tapirs. Superficially, they looked rather like Rhinoceros, rhinos, although they were actually more closely related to horses; Equidae and Brontotheriidae make up the suborder Hippomorpha. They lived around 56–34 million years ago, until the very close of the Eocene. Characteristics and evolution Brontotheres retain four toes on their front feet and three toes on their hind feet. Their teeth are adapted to shearing (cutting) relatively nonabrasive vegetation. Their molar (tooth), molars have a characteristic W-shaped ectoloph (outer shearing blade). The evolutionary history of this group is well known due to an excellent fossil record in North America. The earliest brontotheres, such as ''Eotitanops'', were rather small, no more than a meter in height, and hornless. Brontotheres evolved massive bodies, although some small ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ungulate
Ungulates ( ) are members of the diverse clade Ungulata which primarily consists of large mammals with hooves. These include odd-toed ungulates such as horses, rhinoceroses, and tapirs; and even-toed ungulates such as cattle, pigs, giraffes, camels, sheep, deer, and hippopotamuses. Cetaceans such as whales, dolphins, and porpoises are also classified as even-toed ungulates, although they do not have hooves. Most terrestrial ungulates use the hoofed tips of their toes to support their body weight while standing or moving. The term means, roughly, "being hoofed" or "hoofed animal". As a descriptive term, "ungulate" normally excludes cetaceans as they do not possess most of the typical morphological characteristics of other ungulates, but recent discoveries indicate that they were also descended from early artiodactyls. Ungulates are typically herbivorous and many employ specialized gut bacteria to allow them to digest cellulose. Some modern species, such as pigs, are omnivor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
