-
Deinotherium - Hoe tusker
When: Mid-Miocene to Early Pleistocene (~10 million to 3 million years ago)
Where: Asia, Africa, and Europe
What: Deinotherium is a proboscidiean. The only two living species in Proboscidiea are the African and Indian elephants, but there are dozens of fossil species in this order. Unlike some other groups that not only have a much greater number of fossil species than living but a much wider variety of morphologies to go along with that, most fossil elephants well… look like elephants! That being large, graviportal, and trunked.
However, even though there is less extreme differences in morphology within proboscidieans, there are still a lot of variations on the basic elephant body plan. One great source of variation is in the tusks. The tusks of Deinotherium are enlarged incisors of its lower jaw whereas in modern elephants the tusks are enlarged upper incisors. The clade containing Deinotheirum spilt off from the rest of the order roughly 40 million years ago, and the last common ancestor had slightly enlarged upper and lower incisors - thus it appears that some elephant clades further enlarged one set over the other. Oh, one last note about Deinotheirum… it was over 3 times the size of the modern african elephant. It was the 3rd largest land mammal ever to lumber accross the Earth!
Posted on January 11, 2012 via Your Daily Fossil with 244 notes
Source: dailyfossil
-
sabina986 reblogged this from scientificillustration
-
heather957 reblogged this from scientificillustration
-
gwendolyn374427 reblogged this from scientificillustration
-
andthentherewasplur liked this
-
littleelk liked this
-
thunderboltjackson reblogged this from skullandbone
-
artisuniversum reblogged this from ainsleybelle
-
improbable-truth liked this
-
thekazzu reblogged this from rhamphotheca
-
petrang reblogged this from archaeosaur
-
archaeosaur reblogged this from pup
-
pup reblogged this from liopleurodad
-
thesmilingproudwandererswordsman reblogged this from ainsleybelle
-
frengerli liked this
-
liftyourhead reblogged this from ainsleybelle
-
bellatrixnotswan reblogged this from scientificillustration
-
gurple1 reblogged this from mrscottssocks
-
tf2rocks liked this
-
mrscottssocks liked this
-
mrscottssocks reblogged this from owligator
-
owligator liked this
-
owligator reblogged this from dailyfossil
-
companioncube76 reblogged this from scientificillustration
-
designdrift reblogged this from scientificillustration
-
fuckthereallife liked this
-
artisuniversum liked this
-
ainsleybelle reblogged this from mogget
-
kazenosekai reblogged this from kokodokoko
-
kokodokoko reblogged this from dailyfossil
-
7am liked this
-
ilovenature10 liked this
-
getharion liked this
-
ashedmaniac reblogged this from john-a-zoidberg and added:
Did most of them die by stabbing themselves in the chest any time they looked down?
-
john-a-zoidberg reblogged this from eeeegads
-
kazikat reblogged this from skullandbone
-
22079743 reblogged this from skullandbone
-
juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu liked this
-
marie53 liked this
-
flosef reblogged this from scientificillustration
-
shiverz liked this
-
thatssolid liked this
-
kabwe1 liked this
-
gardant liked this
-
plio-cavedeposits reblogged this from rhamphotheca
-
mnemophylax liked this
-
bunweeandwabbit liked this
-
ainsleybelle liked this
-
gwrr reblogged this from mogget
-
mogget reblogged this from rhamphotheca
-
tutuinuyasha reblogged this from rhamphotheca
- Show more notes
-