Paraceratheriidae
Extinct family of mammals / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Paraceratheriidae is an extinct family of long-limbed, hornless rhinocerotoids native to Asia and Eastern Europe[3] that originated in the Eocene epoch and lived until the end of the Oligocene.
Paraceratheriidae | |
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Skeleton of Paraceratherium | |
Skeleton of Juxia | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Perissodactyla |
Superfamily: | Rhinocerotoidea |
Family: | †Paraceratheriidae Osborn, 1923 |
Subgroups | |
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Synonyms[1] | |
The earliest paraceratheres like Juxia were comparable in size with living rhinoceroses with a body mass of three quarters to one and a half tons, while later members grew substantially larger, with the largest representatives (Paraceratherium, Dzungariotherium) estimated to have a body mass of 17 to possibly over 20 tonnes, making them the largest land mammals to have ever lived.[4][5]
Their range spanned from Eastern Europe in the west, the Indian subcontinent in the south, to Northern China in the east.[3]
They are thought to have been primarily browsers.[6]
Although considered a subfamily of the family Hyracodontidae by some authors, recent authors treat the paraceratheres as a distinct family, Paraceratheriidae (Wang et al. 2016 recover hyracodonts as more basal than paraceratheres).[7][8] Paraceratheriidae is generally recovered as the sister group of Rhinocerotidae, the group which contains modern rhinoceroses.[3]