Baluchitherium
The Baluchitherium grangeri (Henry Fairfield Osborn - 1923) was an animal close to the current Rhinocéros, but without horn, which measured surroundings 5,5 m in height, 8 to 9 m length and which weighed approximately 20 tons. With its birth, the newborn was to weigh approximately 250kg. The found craniums made approximately 1,4 Mr. One estimated their longevity at more or less 80 years.
The exact inhabited areas are not known, but seem definitely Asian, and related to an environment of tropical forests. One found the most complete bones with the Pakistan, but also of craniums fossilized in Central Asia. Cavities in the vertebrae reduced the skeleton of the animal and the structure of cranium suggests that the upper lip was mobile. The weight of the body was supported by some fingers.
The animal lived it there has 30 million years (at the time of the Oligocène and the Miocène) and was herbivorous. Its disappearance is explained doubtless by the climate changes and the fact that the reproduction of the species was relatively weak, the gestation of a female being able to last until more than two years.
It belongs to the group of the périssodactyles and probably to Rhinocerotidae.
It is largest known Mammifère terrestrial which ever existed.
Taxonomy
It is very probable that Indricotherium transouralicum (Maria Pavlova - 1922), that is to say in fact the same one (or at least a very close species).Some also wish to amalgamate the S Paraceratherium and Baluchitherium .
The membership of Baluchitherium to the Rhinocerotidae is generally allowed. But the taxonomy of these animals is still discussed, and some rather arrange them in the fossil family of the Indricotheriinae .
One is unaware of also if Baluchitherium grangeri is a single species with the direction strict, or if this name does not recover several very similar species. Indeed, except for the very complete fossils discovered by the French forwarding of the professor Jean-Wolf Welcomme with the Balouchistan (8 years starting from the end of the year 1990), the other fossils discovered are rather fragmentary.
It is probable that the taxonomy of the Baluchitherium / Indricotherium / Paraceratherium will evolve/move in the future, or at least will be specified.
Catalog of films
See too
External bond
- a photo report on research in Pakistan, with reconstitutions of '' Baluchiterium ''
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