Merycopotamus
| Merycopotamus | ||||||||||||
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Fossil skull of Merycopotamus petrocchii in the Natural History Museum of Florence. |
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| late Miocene to early Pliocene | ||||||||||||
| 11.6 to 5.3 million years | ||||||||||||
| Locations | ||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Merycopotamus | ||||||||||||
| Falconer & Caultey , 1947 | ||||||||||||
Merycopotamus is a genus of extinct mammals from the group of Anthracotheriidae . Merycopotamus lived from the late Miocene to the early Pliocene .
features
Merycopotamus was a medium-sized anthracotheriide. The genus is so similar to modern day hippos that fossils from the Pliocene of Pakistan were originally described as hippopotamus . Similar to the hippopotamus , the very deep lower jaw has a noticeable protrusion at the angle of the jaw. The upper and lower canines and the outer lower incisors are enlarged, more in the males than in the females.
Systematics
The Anthracotheriidae are probably the original group of hippos. Merycopotamus belonged to the subfamily of the Bothriodontinae, which includes the most advanced anthracotheriids. Perhaps Merycopotamus must already be counted among the Hippopotamidae.
species
Four types have been described so far:
- Merycopotamus anisae
- Merycopotamus nanus
- Merycopotamus medioximus
- Merycopotamus dissimilis ( type species )
literature
- Donald R. Prothero, Scott E. Foss (Eds.): The Evolution of Artiodactyls. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore MD 2007, ISBN 978-0-8018-8735-2 .
- Robert L. Carroll : Paleontology and Evolution of the Vertebrates. Thieme, Stuttgart et al. 1993, ISBN 3-13774-401-6 .
Web links
- The Paleobiology Database: Merycopotamus