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Big Prehistoric Mammalian Herbivores ~
Big Prehistoric Mammalian Herbivores ~
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Big Prehistoric Mammalian Herbivores ~
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http://www.mothlightmedia.com/when-eleph...fhfZOvkaL0
When elephant sized camels roamed north America. The dromedary or Arabian camel is a well adapted creature for life in arid and extreme climates like the Middle East and the Sahara desert. Medieval Arabs use to breed these camels alongside horses to use both of their strengths even being known to use the camels to carry water for the horses as they could last so much longer without a drink. The features that allow not just this domesticated version but all camels to thrive in these extreme environments are their fleshy humps containing fat reserves, and their spread out feet making sure they don’t sink into the sand. Camels are also able to rehydrate faster than any other mammal gulping down 110 litres of water in 13 minutes and they even sweat more efficiently letting out as much heat and as little water as possible. The dromedary was domesticated 4000 years ago in either Somalia or the Arabian Peninsula. The camelid family is unusual as their current distribution is almost the inverse of their place of origin, you see, camels evolved in North America but have now gone extinct. Adding to this despite their current suitability to arid environments the 45 million year old climate they first evolved in was much hotter than today making it a jungle like environment. The earliest considered camelid was almost the size of a hare, extraordinarily diminutive considering how large some camels are today. The small stature of Protylopus was not the only thing that it didn’t have in common with modern camels as it morphologically resembled a gazelle. In fact the only thing that ties it to modern camels are its unusual camelid teeth as camels possess dentures fairly unique among mammals. 5-10 million years later poebrotherium came onto the scene which had evolved away from four toes to the famous two toes we see on camels today. This camel was very successful which led to a large diversification of camel species in the Oligocene. This large diversification included the sub family that would give rise to modern day camels along with some notability strange camels by today’s standards. Aepycamelus had a very long neck and long legs resembling a giraffe, the north American climate that this camel evolved in was similar to the African savannah showing that this resemblance was probably convergent evolution. Keeping in with the theme of the African savannah another camelid, although didn’t look anything like an elephant, was the size of one, standing 3.5 meters at the shoulder. Titanotylopus lived during the Miocene and possessed a large hump on its back evidenced by the elongation of its vertebrae. The Miocene seemed to be a good time to be a camel as they are one of the most common animals found in North American Miocene fossil beds. It wasn’t until as little as 6 million years ago that camels finally started to cross the Bering land bridge into Asia. The species to do so was called paracamelus that’s earliest fossils were found in Nevada 10 million years ago and had arrived in Spain and Italy in as little as 4 million years later. Around this time another species of paracamelus called the high arctic camel lived in Alaska and on the north of Bering land bridge. Just before the ice age the earth was going through a slight warm period so it might have been as cold as today but was probably still cold enough to snow. The scene of a camel living out its life in the snow within the Arctic Circle certainly juxtaposes the common associations with camels. However, their adaptations that help them thrive in the desert may be what helped them survive in the extreme climate of Alaska. Being able to store energy in their hump may have sustained them when there was less plant life in the winter and their feet may have stopped them from sinking in the snow. Unfortunately camels have now all gone extinct in North America but when camelids were crossing the bering land bridge they were also crossing another land bridge that had opened up into south America. Camelids crossed over to South America where they still live today, lamas and alpacas are camelids that are distantly related to modern day camels. http://www.theinfolist.com/php/SummaryGet.php?FindGo=camel Harington, C. R. (June 1997). “Ice Age Yukon and Alaskan Camels” https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/03/05/camel_fossils_discovered_in_canadas_arctic_shed_light_on_animals_evolution.html Björn Kurtén and Elaine Anderson: ‘Pleistocene Mammals of North America’ 
Lost wild animals now inform to trophies of Lohit valley in Arunchal Pradesh.
Satya Sinha Wildlife Consultant, Wildlife Institute of India  *This image is copyright of its original author @GrizzlyClaws @tigerluver @peter identify these 
Brontotherium: The brontotheridae lived on Earth from the Eocene (50 millions years ago) to the Oligocene (28 millions years ago), brontotherium was one of the last species. Ancestors of the modern rhinoceros. Brontotherium had 2m50 high and 4m30 long. Its dentition allowed them to eat soft grass only. That was perhaps the main cause of their desappearance.
" Megalonyx (Greek, "large claw") is a genus of ground sloths of the family Megalonychidae, which was endemic to North America from the Hemphillian of the Late Miocene through to the Rancholabrean of the Pleistocene, living from ~10.3 Mya—11,000 years ago, existing for approximately 10.289 million years. The type species, M. jeffersonii, measured about 3 meters (9.8 ft) and weighed up to 1,000 kilograms (2,200 lb). Scientific name: Megalonyx
Phylum: Chordata Higher classification: Megalonychinae Rank: Genus Family: Megalonychidae "
No need to start a new topic with that... As the biggest beast of the Cenozoic era were mammalian herbivores I put this video here. But I am amazed to see the Elephas Namadiscus to be not considered as the greatest... I believed it was the greatest mammal on land that never existed.
" A Coelodonta antiquitatis mother and calf make way for a large herd of Mammuthus primigenius.
Art by Petr Modlitba The woolly rhinoceros is a species of rhinoceros that was common throughout Europe and northern Asia during the Pleistocene epoch and survived until the end of the last glacial period. The woolly rhinoceros was a member of the Pleistocene megafauna. Scientific name: Coelodonta antiquitatis Phylum: Chordata Higher classification: Coelodonta Order: Odd-toed ungulates Rank: Species Family: Rhinocerotidae The woolly mammoth is a species of mammoth that lived during the Pleistocene until its extinction in the early Holocene epoch. It was one of the last in a line of mammoth species, beginning with Mammuthus subplanifrons in the early Pliocene. Scientific name: Mammuthus primigenius Family: Elephantidae Class: Mammalia Kingdom: Animalia Higher classification: Mammoth "
" A scale model of Paraceratherium ?
Paraceratherium was a genus of hornless rhinoceros. It is one of the largest terrestrial mammals that has existed and lived from the early to late Oligocene epoch (34–23 million years ago). Its remains have been found across Eurasia between China and the Balkans. Scientific name: Paraceratherium Phylum: Chordata Order: Odd-toed ungulates Rank: Genus Higher classification: Indricotheriinae Did you know: Indricotherium could be over 5 meters tall and weigh about 15 tons. Photo: Neil Kelly "
"A scale model of Paraceratherium.
Paraceratherium was a genus of hornless rhinoceros. It is one of the largest terrestrial mammals that has existed and lived from the early to late Oligocene epoch (34–23 million years ago). Its remains have been found across Eurasia between China and the Balkans. It is classified as a member of the hyracodont subfamily Indricotheriinae. Paraceratherium means "near the hornless beast", in reference to Aceratherium, the genus in which the type species A. bugtiense was originally placed. The exact size of Paraceratherium is unknown because of the incompleteness of the fossils. The shoulder height was about 4.8 metres (15.7 feet), and the length about 7.4 metres (24.3 feet). Its weight is estimated to have been about 15 to 20 tonnes (33,000 to 44,000 lb). The long neck supported a skull that was about 1.3 metres (4.3 ft) long. It had large, tusk-like incisors and a nasal incision that suggests it had a prehensile upper lip or proboscis (trunk). The legs were long and pillar-like. The lifestyle of Paraceratherium may have been similar to that of modern large mammals such as the elephants and extant rhinoceroses. " 
"Stephanorhinus was closely related to woolly & Sumatran rhinos. The two Late Pleistocene species mostly lived in temperate forests & grasslands."
 *This image is copyright of its original author From @MaijaKarala on twitter 
Credit to @evolution_soup
 *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author
 (11-14-2019, 07:35 PM)Spalea Wrote: Brontotherium: The brontotheridae lived on Earth from the Eocene (50 millions years ago) to the Oligocene (28 millions years ago), brontotherium was one of the last species. Ancestors of the modern rhinoceros. Brontotherium had 2m50 high and 4m30 long. Its dentition allowed them to eat soft grass only. That was perhaps the main cause of their desappearance. The brontotheridae are quite fascinating to me and recently there was a recent study which explains the gigantism in this family. The Cope's rule is in reality not a law but a statistical tendancy and this paper shows us that each time there was a speciation event, these animals didn't necessarily chose the way of gigantism but that systematically the smaller species became extinct. A macroevolutionary pathway to megaherbivory - 2023. Here is the supplementary materials for this study: Supplementary Materials for A macroevolutionary pathway to megaherbivory Oscar Sanisidro, Matthew C. Mihlbachler, Juan L. Cantalapiedra Corresponding author: Oscar Sanisidro, [email protected] Science 380, 616 (2023) DOI: 10.1126/science.ade1833 And on figure S8, we can see that the largest specimens were around 4000kg, but i think this volumetric estimate was based on dental dimensions and i don't know if dental dimensions are good parameters to evaluate mass in herbivorous animals... |
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