''Archaeomeryx'' is an extinct genus of ruminant that lived early in the Eocene. It is believed to be close to the ancestry of the group Pecora, which includes deer,

giraffe The giraffe is a large African hoofed mammal belonging to the genus ''Giraffa''. It is the tallest living terrestrial animal and the largest ruminant on Earth. Traditionally, giraffes were thought to be one species, ''Giraffa camelopardalis ...

s, cows and their relatives. Unlike the modern members of this group, it had a set of functioning incisors in the upper jaw.. It was small in size, comparable to a modern-day mouse deer. It was also very

rabbit Rabbits, also known as bunnies or bunny rabbits, are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also contains the hares) of the order Lagomorpha (which also contains the pikas). ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'' includes the European rabbit speci ...

-like and had several distinctive characteristics. It lived in present-day

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

35 to 40 million years ago.

References

* The Beginning of the Age of Mammals by

Kenneth Rose Kenneth Vivian Rose (15 November 1924 – 28 January 2014) was a journalist and royal biographer in the United Kingdom. The son of Ada and Jacob Rosenwige, a Bradford Jewish surgeon, Rose was educated at Repton and New College, Oxford. He serv ...

Prehistoric cervoids Eocene even-toed ungulates Fossils of China Prehistoric even-toed ungulate genera {{paleo-eventoedungulate-stub