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''Gigantohyrax'' was a
genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial n ...
of herbivorous
A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically adapted to eating plant material, for example foliage or marine algae, for the main component of its diet. As a result of their plant diet, herbivorous animals typically have mouthpart ...
hyrax
Hyraxes (), also called dassies, are small, thickset, herbivorous mammals in the order Hyracoidea. Hyraxes are well-furred, rotund animals with short tails. Typically, they measure between long and weigh between . They are superficially simil ...
-grouped mammals from the Pliocene
The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58Shungura Formation of Ethiopia. Fossils have also been found in
''Gigantohyrax maguirei'' is a type and only species.
Makapansgat
Makapansgat () (or Makapan Valley World Heritage Site) is an archaeological location within the Makapansgat and Zwartkrans Valleys, northeast of Mokopane in Limpopo province, South Africa. It is an important palaeontological site, with the loca ...
of South Africa.
Description
''Gigantohyrax maguirei'' is a type and only species. Holotype
A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of seve ...
BPI M8230 is two thirds of an anterior part of the skull with complete upper dentition. The second and third incisor
Incisors (from Latin ''incidere'', "to cut") are the front teeth present in most mammals. They are located in the premaxilla above and on the mandible below. Humans have a total of eight (two on each side, top and bottom). Opossums have 18, w ...
s are lost, making it more similar to latest hyraxes than the earlier species. Despite its name, ''Gigantohyrax'' didn't reach such gigantic sizes as '' Megalohyrax'' and ''Titanohyrax
''Titanohyrax'' is an extinct genus of large to very large hyrax from the Eocene and Oligocene. Specimens have been discovered in modern-day Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Some species, like ''T. ultimus'', are estimated to be as large a ...
'' from the Early Tertiary, although it was three times as large as the extanct '' Procavia capensis'' from the same family.
It has many features in common with the extinct ''Dendrohyrax
The tree hyrax or tree dassie is a small nocturnal mammal native to Africa. Distantly related to elephants and sea cows, it comprises the four species in the genus ''Dendrohyrax'', one of only three genera in the family Procaviidae, which is t ...
'', although ''Gigantohyrax'' has less difference between the parameters of the
molars and premolars.
See also
*Largest prehistoric animals
The largest prehistoric animals include both vertebrate and invertebrate species. Many of them are described below, along with their typical range of size (for the general dates of extinction, see the link to each). Many species mentioned might ...
References
†
A dagger, obelisk, or obelus is a typographical mark that usually indicates a footnote if an asterisk has already been used. The symbol is also used to indicate death (of people) or extinction (of species). It is one of the modern descendan ...
Pliocene mammals of Africa
Fossils of Ethiopia
Fossil taxa described in 1965
Prehistoric placental genera
Prehistoric monotypic mammal genera
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