Elasmotherium

Elasmotherium , or giant unicorn, is a extinct Rhinocéros which lived in Asia with the Pliocène and with the Pléistocène.

A horn of two meters

This mammal was of a really gigantic size: it reached a two meters height to the garrot and a six meters length. Its cranium supported an enormous horn a height perhaps going up to two meters. The entire animal could have reached a weight of five tons. Its legs were longer than those of the current rhinoceroses, and were made for the gallop, which gave to the animal a pace similar to that of the horse. It was probably a fast runner, in spite of its size. Even the teeth were similar to those of the horses, and probably indicate a mode containing grass coriaces.

Evolution and diffusion

One found many fossils belonging to various species of this animal: the oldest remainders were found in Eastern China in grounds going back to higher Pliocène, and they belong to the species E. inexpectatum and E. peii. The origins of these primitive forms seem to lie in the kind Sinotherium, of the higher Miocène. The Elasmoterii primitivi disappeared at the beginning of Pleistocene, approximately 1,6 million years ago. Other species d' Elasmotherium , E. caucasicum , seemed in Russia approximately a million years ago. Elasmotherium sibiricum , the most evolved/moved largest species and, appeared in Russia of South-west at average Pleistocene, and it was spread as far as Siberia. Elasmotherium was spread in all southernmost Russia, in Ukraine, in Moldavie and died out at the end of average Pleistocene.

In the steppes or on banks of the rivers?

The morphological characteristics of the élasmothères gave birth to two principal assumptions concerning their aspect and the characteristics from their habitat. The first, accepted by the majority of the specialists, described the élasmothères like large animals with long hairs, with a gigantic horn on the top of cranium, and which lived the open steppes. Remainders of horn, however, were never found, one has only one impressive osseous structure which made function of support. The other assumption sees in the elasmothères animals which lived near banks of rivers. This theory is based on dental and cranial morphology: the combination of characters like the absence of canines and the side movements of the jaws strongly developed imply side movements of the head, probably to nourish itself of grass. Teeth hypsodonte indicate the presence of minerals in the food; a food of this type is mainly on banks of the rivers. In addition, the long and slender legs could be used for the animal to move on vast surfaces of grazing ground, like the steppes. It is at the possible bottom that the two assumptions are correct.

Historical testimonys

It is probable qu'Elasmotherium disappeared at the time prehistoric. However, according to the Swedish encyclopedia Nordisk familjebok and the researcher Willy Ley, the animal could have survived long enough to have left traces in the legends of the Evenk people in Russia, in the shape of an enormous black bull equipped with a single horn at the top of its head. There exists moreover the testimony of the medieval traveller Ibn Fadlan, generally considered a reliable source and which would indicate qu'Elasmotherium would have survived until historical times in the North-East of current Iran.

Here the testimony of Ibn Fadlan:

“With the borders of a vast steppe, lives, says one, an animal smaller than a camel but larger than a bull. Its head is the head of a sheep, and its tail that of a bull. Its body is that of a mule and its shoes resemble those of a bull. In the middle of the head a horn, thick is and rounded, and more it becomes high plus it becomes narrow, to resemble the end with a point of lance. Some-a of these horns grow up to three or five ells, half of the size of the animal. It nourishes sheets of the trees, which are an excellent vegetation. Each time he sees a rider he approaches and, if the rider has a fast horse, the horse passionately tries to flee; if the animal joined them, it makes fall the rider from its saddle with its horn, launches it in air, and strikes it with the point of the horn, and continuous with thus until dead follows. But it does not strike nor does not wound the horse in some way that it either. The inhabitants of the place continue the animal in the steppes and the forest to which they are able to kill it. Here how the things occur: they climb on raised trees between which the animal passes. Some archers strip poisoned arrows to him; and when the animal is in the middle of them, they strike it and wound it until death. Myself I saw three great cuts, which resembled shells of Yemen, they were the property of the king, who said to me that they came from the horn of this animal”.

Some supposed that survival d'Elasmotherium during historical times could be at the origin of the myth of the unicorn, since the description of the animal corresponds perfectly to the unicorn karkadann of Persia, and with the unicorn zhi of China.

Sources

“N.G. Noskova Elasmotherians - evolution, distribution and ecology” The World off Elephants - International Congress, Rome 2001

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