''Hemibos'' is an extinct even-toed ungulate belonging to the family

Bovidae The Bovidae comprise the biological family of cloven-hoofed, ruminant mammals that includes cattle, bison, buffalo, antelopes, and caprines. A member of this family is called a bovid. With 143 extant species and 300 known extinct species, ...

. Its fossil remains were found across

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

and

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

such as from China, Italian Peninsula, Iberian Peninsula, and State of Palestine, Israel, Pakistan, India.

Description

This animal was a large bovid similar to the modern

Asian buffalo The water buffalo (''Bubalus bubalis''), also called the domestic water buffalo or Asian water buffalo, is a large bovid originating in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. Today, it is also found in Europe, Australia, North America, So ...

(''Bubalus bubalis''), of which it is probably ancestral. It was characterized by elongated and non-prominent frontal bones; the bone cores of the horns did not have a neck at the base, and the angle between the horns was variable but usually between 85 ° and 110 °. Also, the orientation of the horns was variable according to the species: the species ''H. triquetricornis'', ''H. acuticornis'' and ''H. galerianus'' possessed horns directed backwards, outwards and slightly upwards, while ''H. antelopinus'' and ''H. palaestinus'' possessed different morphologies. The teeth were hypsodont, with increasing development of dental cement; the upper molars were square.

Classification

The genus ''Hemibos'' was first described in 1865 by Rütimeyer, based on fossils found in India in Plio-Pleistocene soils. The genus includes five species; three of these (''H. acuticornis'', ''H. triquetricornis'' and ''H. antelopinus'') come from the Pinjor formation of the Siwaliks (Plio-Pleistocene, Indian subcontinent), one (''H. gracilis'') is known from

Gansu Gansu (, ; alternately romanized as Kansu) is a province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibet ...

(China) in the

lower Pleistocene The Early Pleistocene is an unofficial sub-epoch in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, being the earliest division of the Pleistocene Epoch within the ongoing Quaternary Period. It is currently estimated to span the time ...

, and another (''H. galerianus'') is the largest and most recent and comes from

Ponte Galeria Ponte Galeria is the 41st ''zona'' of Rome, Italy, identified by the initials Z. XLI. Geographically it was part of Agro Romano. The zone belongs to the Municipio XI. History The area of Ponte Galeria, populated since the Paleolithic, is the j ...

and

Ponte Milvio The Milvian (or Mulvian) Bridge ( it, Ponte Milvio or ; la, Pons Milvius or ) is a bridge over the Tiber in northern Rome, Italy. It was an economically and strategically important bridge in the era of the Roman Empire and was the site of the f ...

(Rome, Italy) and dates from the Early Pleistocene/

Middle Pleistocene The Chibanian, widely known by its previous designation of Middle Pleistocene, is an age in the international geologic timescale or a stage in chronostratigraphy, being a division of the Pleistocene Epoch within the ongoing Quaternary Period. The ...

boundary. In lower Pleistocene Spain, a form similar to H. gracilis was found. Another species attributed to Hemibos is ''H. palaestinicus'' from Israel, but the dating is not certain and a morphological analysis indicates it may belong to the genus ''

Bison Bison are large bovines in the genus ''Bison'' (Greek: "wild ox" (bison)) within the tribe Bovini. Two extant and numerous extinct species are recognised. Of the two surviving species, the American bison, ''B. bison'', found only in North Ame ...

''. The species ''Probubalus occipitalis'' is considered identical to ''H. triquetricornis''.

Description

Classification

References

Further reading