Thought I only had a dinosaur fetish? Don't think I'd forget our Cenozoic buddies, the extinct mammals. I love those guys! This one in particular: Uintatherium anceps. This dinoceratian (a group of large, extinct mammals, presumably hairless) mammal lived during the middle of the Eocene Epoch in the Paleogene Period (formerly the Tertiary) of North America. This big guy was first discovered at Fort Bridger, Wyoming, and was named by famed paleontologist Joseph Leidy in 1872. Its six horns were apparently used as a display to the opposite sex, and the tusks in its mouth would have been useful for detering hyaenodont predators, a variety of carnivorous mammals from the same time and locality. The above picture was painted around 1920 by Heinrich Harder.Saturday, May 2, 2009
Critter of the Day, 5/3/09: Uintatherium
Thought I only had a dinosaur fetish? Don't think I'd forget our Cenozoic buddies, the extinct mammals. I love those guys! This one in particular: Uintatherium anceps. This dinoceratian (a group of large, extinct mammals, presumably hairless) mammal lived during the middle of the Eocene Epoch in the Paleogene Period (formerly the Tertiary) of North America. This big guy was first discovered at Fort Bridger, Wyoming, and was named by famed paleontologist Joseph Leidy in 1872. Its six horns were apparently used as a display to the opposite sex, and the tusks in its mouth would have been useful for detering hyaenodont predators, a variety of carnivorous mammals from the same time and locality. The above picture was painted around 1920 by Heinrich Harder.
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