Paraceratherium
was a rhinoceros that lived around 20 million years ago. Standing tall
with a longer neck, it doesn't much resemble a modern rhinoceros. The
15-20 ton giant is the subject of a new book by paleontologist Donald
Prothero called
Rhinoceros Giants. But it's not just about
Paraceratherium. It's also a book about paleontologists finding evidence of
Paraceratherium.
For
more than the first half of the book, in fact, Paraceratherium only
appears as scattered fragments that puzzled and inspired successive
generations of paleontologists. Prothero recounts the lives of fossil
mammal researchers such as Walter Granger, Henry Guy Ellcock Pilgrim,
Clive Forster Cooper, and Zhou Ming-Zhen, among others, in detail before
diving into the geological particulars of where Paraceratherium bones
are found and where the giant fit in the wider rhino family tree. While a
giant rhino without a horn might look odd compared to living species,
Prothero points out that Paraceratherium belonged to a major and
totally-extinct group of rhinos, and that most fossil rhinos don’t show
any evidence of horns at all. Modern rhinos might look prehistoric, but
they’re actually quite different from their varied predecessors.
Read more about this rhino and the book at
Laelaps.
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