Anthracotheriidae
Live reconstruction of Anthracotherium magnum from the European Oligocene.
- Europe
- Asia
- Africa (among Fayum )
- North America
The Anthracotheriidae are an extinct group of pigs - up hippo -like animals that lived from the Middle Eocene to late Pliocene. Fossils of animals were often found in deposits of freshwater and suggest an aquatic lifestyle of many Anthracotheriidengattungen.
They appear in the middle Eocene in Europe and Asia, were one of the first Paarhuferfamilien who underwent an Adaptive Radiation, and arrived in the late Eocene and Oligocene North Africa. Europe was only temporarily inhabited by Anthracotherien. In the late Eocene and early Oligocene Elomeryx was widespread. In the late Oligocene, 30 million years ago, most Anthracotheriidae died in the wake of a global cooling and desertification caused by it in Europe again. New forms came in the wake of a European-African Faunenaustausches, in the early Miocene to Europe, but soon died out again and can no longer be detected already in the middle Miocene. Some morphologically primitive Anthracotherien survived on an existing from today Sardinia and Tuscany isolated island in the Mediterranean, longer. In Africa, the Anthracotheriidae survived until the Pliocene, where they are probably the original group of hippos become.
Features
The animals were heavily built, reaching heights between those of a medium-sized dog and hippos. Her appearance mediated between pig and hippo -like. The legs were short and stocky, the skull broad and pig -like. The molars were square.
The first Anthracotherien were like pigs and reached the size of a wild boar or remained small. Their dentition was bunodont. Probably the animals were omnivores. Since the late Eocene they were larger and more developed now than herbivores, a selenodonte dentition. Always kept five toes on the forefeet and four on the hind feet, the outside were regressed somewhat.
Outer systematics
Despite the external similarity of the early Anthracotheriidae with pig -like, there is no close relationship. The last representatives of the Anthracotheriidae that Bothriodontinae, were very similar to the hippos, and today many scientists assume that they are the group from which the hippos have emerged. The hippos were so recent Anthracotheriiden in the phylogenetic sense and this would therefore not extinct.
Inside systematics
- Anthracotheriidae Siamotherium
- Anthracohyus
- Anthracotheriinae Heptacodon
- Anthracotherium
- Anthracokeryx
- Microbunodon
- Ulausodon
- Elomeryx
- Bothriogenys
- Qatraniodon
- Bothriodon
- Bakalovia
- Aepinacondon
- Arretotherium
- Kukusepasutanka
- Brachyodus
- Afromeryx
- Sivameryx
- Hemimeryx
- Merycopotamus
- Libycosaurus
Swell
- Donald R. Prothero, Scott E. Foss (ed.): The Evolution of artiodactyls. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD 2007, ISBN 978-0-8018-8735-2.
- Alan Turner, Mauricio Anton: Evolving Eden. An Illustrated Guide to the Evolution of the African Large Mammal Fauna. Columbia University Press, New York, NY 2004, ISBN 0-231-11944-5.
- Jordi Augusti, Mauricio Antón: Mammoths, Sabertooths, and Hominids. 65 Million Years of Mammalian Evolution in Europe. Columbia University Press, New York, NY, inter alia, 2002, ISBN 0-231-11640-3.