''Arcanotherium'' is an extinct genus of early

proboscidean The Proboscidea (; , ) are a taxonomic order of afrotherian mammals containing one living family (Elephantidae) and several extinct families. First described by J. Illiger in 1811, it encompasses the elephants and their close relatives. From ...

belonging to the family Numidotheriidae that lived in north Africa during the late Eocene/early Oligocene interval.

Taxonomy

''Arcanotherium'' was originally described by Court (1995) as a new species of ''

Numidotherium ''Numidotherium'' ("Numidia beast") is an extinct genus of early proboscideans, discovered in 1984, that lived during the middle Eocene of North Africa some 46 million years ago. It was about 90-100 cm tall at the shoulder and weighed about 250- ...

'', ''N. savagei'', based on a mandible found in the late 1960s in late Eocene deposits at Dor el Talha,

Libya Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya bo ...

. However, after the ''Barytherium'' material from Libya became accessible to paleontologists, undescribed material from the collection prompted Delmer (2009) to erect ''Arcanotherium'' for ''N. savagei''.C. Delmer. 2009. Reassessment of the generic attribution of Numidotherium savagei and the homologies of lower incisors in proboscideans. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 54(4):561-580

References

Eocene proboscideans Prehistoric placental genera Eocene mammals of Africa Fossil taxa described in 2009 {{paleo-proboscidean-stub