Deinogalerix

Deinogalerix
	Deinogalerix koenigswaldi
Temporal occurrence
	Miocene
	10 million years
Locations
	Southern Italy;
Systematics
	Higher mammals (Eutheria)
	Laurasiatheria
	Insect eater (Eulipotyphla)
	Hedgehog (Erinaceidae)
	Rat hedgehog (Galericinae)
	Deinogalerix
Scientific name
	Deinogalerix
	Freudenthal , 1973

Reconstruction with a European brown-breasted hedgehog for comparison

Deinogalerix ("terrifying hedgehog") is an extinct genus of the rat hedgehog (Galericinae) and lived around 10 million years ago, in the late Miocene , endemically on the paleo-island of Gargano , which is now a peninsula connected to the Italian mainland.

With a skull length of up to 20 centimeters, a total length of 60 centimeters and an estimated weight of 10 kilograms, the largest species, Deinogalerix koenigswaldi , is one of the largest known representatives of the hedgehog; this species was described by M. Freudenthal and given its name to his mentor, Professor Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald . There are four other known species.

Like today's rat hedgehogs (Galericinae), Deinogalerix did not have a spiked dress, but a fur made of long, bristle hair.

species

Deinogalerix koenigswaldi
Deinogalerix minor
Deinogalerix intermedius
Deinogalerix freudenthali
Deinogalerix brevirostris

In 2013 Boris Villier, Lars W. Van Den Hoek Ostend, John De Vos and Marco Pavia described another species, which they named Deinogalerix masinii in honor of Federico Masini .

literature

Gerhard Storch : Lipotyphla, insect eater. In: Wilfried Westheide , Reinhard Rieger (Ed.): Special Zoology. Volume 2: Vertebrates or Skull Animals. Spektrum Akademischer Verlag, Heidelberg et al. 2004, ISBN 3-8274-0307-3 , pp. 514-524.
M. Freudenthal: Deinogalerix koenigswaldi nov. gen., nov. spec., a giant insectivore from the Neogene of Italy . In: Scripta Geologica . No. 14, 1972, ISSN 0375-7587 , pp. 1-19 (English, PDF file, 3.30 MiB; entry in the Digital Academic Repository of the Naturalis Biodiversity Center ).
PM Butler: The giant erinaceid insectivore, Deinogalerix Freudenthal, from the upper Miocene of Gargano, Italy . In: Scripta Geologica . No. 57, 1980, ISSN 0375-7587 , pp. 1-72 ( entry in the Digital Academic Repository of the Naturalis Biodiversity Center ).
Boris Villier, Lars W. Van Den Hoek Ostende, John De Vos, Marco Pavia: New discoveries on the giant hedgehog Deinogalerix from the Miocene of Gargano (Apulia, Italy) . In: Geobios . Volume 46, No. 1–2, January – April 2013, DOI: 10.1016 / j.geobios.2012.10.001 , ISSN 0016-6995 , pp. 63–75 (English).

Web links

Commons : Deinogalerix - collection of images, videos and audio files

† Deinogalerix Freudenthal 1972 (hedgehog) in Fossilworks.org , a web-based portal to the Paleobiology Database by John Alroy
Deinogalerix in www.prehistoric-wildlife.com
DEINOGALERIX in the Dinosaur and Paleontology Dictionary
Enrico de Lazaro: Deinogalerix masinii: New Giant Fossil Hedgehog from Italy . In: sci-news.com . November 11, 2013 (English).

Individual evidence

↑ M. Freudenthal: Deinogalerix koenigswaldi nov. gen., nov. spec., a giant insectivore from the Neogene of Italy . In: Scripta Geologica . No. 14, 1972, ISSN 0375-7587 , pp. 1-19, accessed and received on February 22, 2017 (English, PDF file, 3.30 MiB; entry in the Digital Academic Repository of the Naturalis Biodiversity Center ).
↑ † Deinogalerix Freudenthal 1972 (hedgehog) . In: Fossilworks.org . John Alroy , accessed and received on February 22, 2017.
↑ Boris Villier, Lars W. Van Den Hoek Ostend, John De Vos, Marco Pavia: New discoveries on the giant hedgehog Deinogalerix from the Miocene of Gargano (Apulia, Italy) . In: Geobios . Volume 46, No. 1–2, January – April 2013, DOI: 10.1016 / j.geobios.2012.10.001 , ISSN 0016-6995 , pp. 63–75, accessed and received on February 23, 2017 (English).

[1] M. Freudenthal: Deinogalerix koenigswaldi nov. gen., nov. spec., a giant insectivore from the Neogene of Italy . In: Scripta Geologica . No. 14, 1972, ISSN 0375-7587 , pp. 1-19, accessed and received on February 22, 2017 (English, PDF file, 3.30 MiB; entry in the Digital Academic Repository of the Naturalis Biodiversity Center ).

[2] † Deinogalerix Freudenthal 1972 (hedgehog) . In: Fossilworks.org . John Alroy , accessed and received on February 22, 2017.

[3] Boris Villier, Lars W. Van Den Hoek Ostend, John De Vos, Marco Pavia: New discoveries on the giant hedgehog Deinogalerix from the Miocene of Gargano (Apulia, Italy) . In: Geobios . Volume 46, No. 1–2, January – April 2013, DOI: 10.1016 / j.geobios.2012.10.001 , ISSN 0016-6995 , pp. 63–75, accessed and received on February 23, 2017 (English).