Numidotheriidae
Numidotheriidae is an extinct family of primitive proboscideans that lived from the late Paleocene to the early Oligocene periods of North Africa. Fragmentary fossils (mainly teeth) of the early Eocene genera, ''Daouitherium'' and ''Phosphatherium'', have been found in the Ouled Abdun Basin, Morocco. ''Numidotherium'' is known from an almost complete skeleton from late early Eocene deposits in southern Algeria and Libya. Compared to modern elephants, the Numidotheriidae were quite small. ''Phosphatherium'', for instance, was only long and weighed about . ''Numidotherium'' was about in length. They occupied a similar ecological niche to the modern hippopotamus and the related early proboscid ''Moeritherium ''Moeritherium'' ("the beast from Lake Moeris") is an extinct genus of basal proboscideans from the Eocene of North and West Africa. The first specimen was discovered in strata from the Fayum fossil deposits of Egypt. It was named in 1901 by C ...'', feeding on soft, aqu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Arcanotherium
''Arcanotherium'' is an extinct genus of early proboscidean 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'', ''N. savagei'', based on a mandible found in the late 1960s in late Eocene deposits at Dor el Talha, Libya Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya border, the east, Sudan to Libya–Sudan border, the southeast, Chad to Chad–L .... 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''. Phylogeny Below is a phylogenetic tree of early Proboscidea, based on the work of Hautier ''et al''. (2021). References Numidotheriid ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Phosphatherium
''Phosphatherium escuilliei'', named by Gheerbrant, Sudre and Cappetta in 1996, is a basal proboscidean that lived in Africa during the early Eocene, about 56-55 Ma. It is one of the earliest known proboscideans, together with ''Eritherium azzouzorum'' from the Selandian (about 60 Ma). It was found in phosphorites beds from the base of the Ypresian stage of the Ouled Abdoun Basin, which is best known for its exceptionally rich marine vertebrate fauna. Description The species ''P. escuilliei'' is known from relatively well-preserved fossils, including several sub-complete skulls that have enabled the reconstruction of the animal's head. The skull of ''Phosphatherium'' is very primitive compared to advanced proboscideans (Elephantiformes), for example the nasal openings are anterior, indicating that it lacked a trunk. Other plesiomorphic traits are the elongated face, the narrow rostrum, the strong sagittal and nuchal crests, the presence of an alisphenoid canal, the auditory ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Plesielephantiformes
Plesielephantiformes is a proposed suborder of the Proboscidea, the group containing elephants and their close relatives. It was named and circumscribed in a 2001 study by Jeheskel Shoshani and colleagues to include Deinotheriidae, as well as Numidotheriidae and Barytheriidae. While originally proposed to represent a monophyletic clade, based on the supposed unifying character of having bilophodont teeth, most modern phylogenetic studies of Proboscidea find the group to be paraphyletic Paraphyly is a taxonomic term describing a grouping that consists of the grouping's last common ancestor and some but not all of its descendant lineages. The grouping is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In co ..., with Deinotheriidae more closely related to Elephantiformes than to other supposed members of the group. Cladogram after Hautier et al. 2021: References Prehistoric animal suborders Mammal suborders Prehistoric proboscideans { ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Numidotherium , has been reassigned to its own genus, '' Arcanotherium''.''Numidotherium'' (meaning "Numidia beast" in Ancient Greek) 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 tall at the shoulder and weighed about . The type species, ''N. koholense'', is known from an almost complete skeleton from the site of El Kohol, southern Algeria, dating from the early/middle Eocene period. The animal had the size and the appearance of a modern tapir. In appearance, it was more slender and more plantigrade than an elephant, its closest modern relative.Libya [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Proboscidea
Proboscidea (; , ) is 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. Three living species of elephant are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. Extinct members of Proboscidea include the deinotheres, mastodons, gomphotheres and stegodonts. The family Elephantidae also contains several extinct groups, including mammoths and '' Palaeoloxodon''. Proboscideans include some of the largest known land mammals, with the elephant '' Palaeoloxodon namadicus'' and mastodon ''"Mammut" borsoni'' suggested to have body masses surpassing , rivalling or exceeding paraceratheres (the otherwise largest known land mammals) in size. The largest extant proboscidean is the African bush elephant, with a world record of size of at the shoulder and . In addition to thei ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Daouitherium
''Daouitherium'' ("Sidi Daoui beast" from the name of the site where it was discovered) is an extinct genus of early proboscideans (a group including modern elephants and their extinct relatives) that lived during the early Eocene (Ypresian stage) some 55 million years ago in North Africa. Remains of this animal, fragments of jaws and teeth, have been found in the Ouled Abdoun Basin in Morocco. It is estimated to have weighed between , making it one of the earliest large mammals known from Africa and one of the oldest known proboscideans. Another estimate gives a weight of . Description ''Daouitherium'' is known only from lower jaws and associated cheek teeth. It had lophodont and bilophodont molars, i.e. molars with large ridges. The second and third premolars had a notably large cusp called the hypoconid. Gheerbrant et al. described the teeth as similar to those of other early proboscideans '' Phosphatherium'', '' Numidotherium'', and '' Barytherium''. Taxonomy A cl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hippopotamus
The hippopotamus (''Hippopotamus amphibius;'' ; : hippopotamuses), often shortened to hippo (: hippos), further qualified as the common hippopotamus, Nile hippopotamus and river hippopotamus, is a large semiaquatic mammal native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae, the other being the pygmy hippopotamus (''Choeropsis liberiensis'' or ''Hexaprotodon liberiensis''). Its name comes from the ancient Greek for "river horse" (). After elephants and rhinoceroses, the hippopotamus is the next largest land mammal. It is also the largest extant land artiodactyl. Despite their physical resemblance to pigs and other terrestrial even-toed ungulates, the closest living relatives of the hippopotamids are cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises, etc.), from which they diverged about 55 million years ago. Hippos are recognisable for their barrel-shaped torsos, wide-opening mouths with large canine tusks, nearly hairless bodies, pillar ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Paleocene First Appearances
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 (Chicxulub impact) and possibly volcanism ( Deccan Traps), marked the beginning of the Paleocene and killed off 75% of 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 Hemispher ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Prehistoric Mammal Families
Prehistory, also called pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the first known use of stone tools by hominins million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of symbols, marks, and images appears very early among humans, but the earliest known writing systems appeared years ago. It took thousands of years for writing systems to be widely adopted, with writing having spread to almost all cultures by the 19th century. The end of prehistory therefore came at different times in different places, and the term is less often used in discussing societies where prehistory ended relatively recently. It is based on an old conception of history that without written records there could be no history. The most common conception today is that history is based on evidence, however the concept of prehistory hasn't been completely discarded. In the early Bronze Age, Sumer in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley Civilis ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Eocene Proboscideans
The Eocene ( ) is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (Ma). 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.See: *Letter from William Whewell to Charles Lyell dated 31 January 1831 in: * From p. 55: "The period next antecedent we shall call Eocene, from ήως, aurora, and χαινος, recens, because the extremely small proportion of living species contained in these strata, indicates what may be considered the first commencement, or ''dawn'', of the existing state of the animate creation." 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 com ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Moeritherium
''Moeritherium'' ("the beast from Lake Moeris") is an extinct genus of basal proboscideans from the Eocene of North and West Africa. The first specimen was discovered in strata from the Fayum fossil deposits of Egypt. It was named in 1901 by Charles William Andrews, who suggested that it was an early proboscidean, perhaps ancestral to mastodons, although subsequent workers considered it everything from a relative of manatees to a close relative of both clades' common ancestor. Currently, ''Moeritherium'' is seen as a proboscidean that, while fairly basal, predates the split between elephantiforms and deinotheres. Seven species have been named, though only three (''M. lyonsi'', ''M. gracile'', and ''M. chehbeurameuri''), are currently considered valid. ''Moeritherium'' is unusual even among basal proboscidean standards. Like many later members of the group, it had two sets of tusks: the ones on the upper jaw pointed downwards, while those of the mandible (lower jaw) were fla ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |