Cattle giraffes

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Cattle giraffes
Sivatherium (painting by Heinrich Harder, 1916)

Sivatherium (painting by Heinrich Harder , 1916)

Temporal occurrence
Miocene to Pleistocene
11.8 million years to 8,000 years
Locations
Systematics
Subordination : Ruminants (ruminantia)
without rank: Forehead weapon bearer (Pecora)
without rank: Giraffomorpha
Superfamily : Giraffoidea
Family : Giraffes (Giraffidae)
Subfamily : Cattle giraffes
Scientific name
Sivatheriinae
Bonaparte , 1850
Helladotherium skeleton

The cattle giraffes (Sivatheriinae) were a subfamily of fossil giraffe-like ungulates that had their heyday in the Upper Miocene , Pliocene and Pleistocene .

The name is derived from the sediment deposits at the foot of the Siwaliks mountain range in Pakistan , where the first fossil remains of the Indratherium (named after the Hindu deity Indra ) were discovered by Hugh Falconer and Proby Thomas Cautley in 1832 . Their habitat were the temperate zones of Africa, Europe (especially in the Mediterranean and Greece) and Asia.

Systematics

The following genera belonged to this subfamily:

The cattle giraffes first appeared in the Upper Miocene in Eurasia around the same time as the giraffins, to which today's giraffes ( Giraffa camelopardalis ) belong . The best known is the Sivatherium from India ( Sivatherium giganteum ). It bore no resemblance to today's giraffes , but rather the morphology of a stocky antelope or a buffalo. It had short legs and a short neck, but reached a weight of 400 kilograms and a height of three meters. The huge skull was about three inches long. Of the four large, fur-clad front cones, the rear ones were shovel-shaped and the snout was - similar to that of an elk - quite wide. It probably fed on grass. The genera Lybitherium , Orangiotherium and Griquatherium are often included in Sivatherium .

Sivatherium maurusium was the African Sivatherium . The fossil remains were found in Morocco ( Ahl al Oughlam ), Djibouti and the Olduvai Gorge .

Another species was Birgerbohlinia schaubei , also known as the "European cattle giraffe". It was native to the Mediterranean area, weighed about 220 kg, reached a height of two meters and had two large front tenons. It died out a million years ago. It was named after the Swedish paleontologist Birger Bohlin , who carried out the most extensive classification of giraffes in the 1920s. Helladotherium was one of the early forms and is sometimes mistaken for a female of Hydaspitherium .

Reconstruction of a Sivatherium in the Polish Muzeum Ewolucji in Warsaw

Most species lived at the transition from the Pliocene to the Pleistocene two million years ago. The last representatives died out during the Pleistocene. It is occasionally speculated that some may have survived until about 8,000 years ago. These assumptions are based on a Sumerian bronze figure and cave paintings from the Sahara , showing creatures that are vaguely reminiscent of Sivatheria.

literature

  • Arno Hermann Müller : Textbook of paleozoology. Volume 3: Vertebrates. Part 3: Mammalia. 2nd, revised and expanded edition. Gustav Fischer Verlag, Jena 1989, ISBN 3-334-00223-3 .
  • Erich Thenius : Basics of the fauna and distribution history of mammals. A historical animal geography. 2nd, completely revised edition. Gustav Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-437-30312-0 .
  • Birger Bohlin: The Giraffidae family with special attention to the fossil forms from China. Geological Survey of China, Beijing 1926 ( Palaeontologia Sinica. Series C, Vol. 4, Fasc. 1, ZDB -ID 1168040-4 ), (also: Upsala, Phil. Diss., 1926).

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