Anthracotheriidae

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Anthracotheriidae
Live reconstruction of Anthracotherium magnum from the European Oligocene.

Live reconstruction of Anthracotherium magnum from the European Oligocene.

Temporal occurrence
middle Eocene to late Pliocene
38 to 2.4 million years
Locations
Systematics
Mammals (mammalia)
Higher mammals (Eutheria)
Laurasiatheria
Artiodactyla (Artiodactyla)
Hippopotamoidea
Anthracotheriidae
Scientific name
Anthracotheriidae
Leidy , 1869

The Anthracotheriidae are an extinct group of outwardly pig- to hippopotamus-like cloven - hoofed animals that lived from the Middle Eocene to the Late Pliocene . Fossils of the animals were often found in deposits of freshwater and suggest an aquatic way of life for many anthracotheroid genera.

Tribal history

They appear in the late Middle Eocene in Europe and Asia and reached North America in the late Eocene and Africa in the Oligocene . Europe was only temporarily colonized by anthracotherias. Elomeryx was widespread in the late Eocene and early Oligocene . In the late Oligocene, 30 million years ago, most of the Anthracotheriidae died out again in Europe as a result of global cooling and desertification caused by it. New forms came to Europe in the course of a European-African fauna exchange in the early Miocene , but soon died out again and can no longer be detected as early as the Middle Miocene. However, some morphologically primitive anthracotheria survived longer on an isolated island in the Mediterranean Sea consisting of what is now Sardinia and Tuscany . In Africa the Anthracotheriidae survived until the end of the Miocene, in Asia until the Upper Pliocene . They represent the original group of hippos that developed in Africa.

features

The animals were heavily built and reached body sizes between that of a medium-sized dog and that of hippos. Their appearance mediated between pig and hippo-like. The legs were short and stocky, the skull broad and pig-like. The molars were square.

The first anthracotheria were pig-like, reaching the size of a wild boar or staying smaller. Their dentition was bunodont . The animals were probably omnivores. Since the late Eocene they became larger and, now as pure herbivores, developed a selenodontic dentition. They always kept five toes on the front feet and four on the back feet, the ones on the outside being somewhat receded.

External system

Despite the external similarity of the early Anthracotheriidae with pig species , there is no closer relationship. The last representatives of the Anthracotheriidae, the Bothriodontinae, closely resembled the hippos , and today many scientists assume that they are the group from which the hippos emerged. Within the Anthracotheriids , Epirigenys is the closest relative of the hippopotamus, which was first described in 2015. The genus has been proven through remains of the lower jaw and teeth from Kenya, which date to the Oligocene and are therefore almost 30 million years old. The hippopotamuses would be recent anthracotheriids in the phylogenetic sense and they would not have become extinct.

Internal system

Lower jaw of Anthracotherium monsvialense in the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Verona .
Live reconstruction of Elomeryx armatus .

swell

  • Donald R. Prothero, Scott E. Foss (Eds.): The Evolution of Artiodactyls. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore MD 2007, ISBN 978-0-8018-8735-2 .
  • Alan Turner, Mauricio Antón: Evolving Eden. An Illustrated Guide to the Evolution of the African Large Mammal Fauna. Columbia University Press, New York NY 2004, ISBN 0-231-11944-5 .
  • Jordi Augusti, Mauricio Antón: Mammoths, Sabertooths, and Hominids. 65 Million Years of Mammalian Evolution in Europe. Columbia University Press, New York NY et al. 2002, ISBN 0-231-11640-3 .

Web links

Commons : Anthracotheriidae  - Collection of images, videos, and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Thomas S. Kemp: The Origin & Evolution of Mammals. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2005. ISBN 0198507615
  2. ^ Agusti & Anton, page 61
  3. ^ Agusti & Anton, page 83
  4. ^ Agusti & Anton, page 106
  5. ^ Agusti & Anton, page 197
  6. ↑ Patricia A. Holroyd, Fabrice Lihoreau, Gregg F. Gunnell and Ellen R. Miller: Anthracotheriidae. In: Lars Werdelin and William Joseph Sanders (eds.): Cenozoic Mammals of Africa. University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 2010, pp. 843-851
  7. ↑ Rattanaphorn Hanta, Benjavun Ratanasthien, Yutaka Kunimatsu, Haruo Saegusa, Hideo Nakaya, Shinji Nagaoka and Pratueng Jintasakul: A New Species of Bothriodontinae, Merycopotamus thachangensis (Cetartiodactyla Thailand, Anthracotheriidae Thailand, Nakhotheriidae from Northakhotheriidae). Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 28 (4), 2008, pp. 1182-1188
  8. ↑ a b c Fabrice Lihoreau, Jean-Renaud Boisserie, Fredrick Kyalo Manthi and Stéphane Ducrocq: Hippos stem from the longest sequence of terrestrial cetartiodactyl evolution in Africa. Nature Communications 6, 2015 doi : 10.1038 / ncomms7264
  9. ^ Agusti & Anton, page 59
  10. ^ Agusti & Anton, page 73
  11. ^ Jean-Renaud Boisserie, Fabrice Lihoreau and Michel Brunet (February 2005): The position of Hippopotamidae within Cetartiodactyla. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 102 (5): 1537-1541. doi : 10.1073 / pnas.0409518102