Gigantic Mammaries
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Gigantic Mammaries
Bob Strauss is a science writer and the author of several books, including "The Big Book of What, How and Why" and "A Field Guide to the Dinosaurs of North America."
Strauss, Bob. "Giant Mammal and Megafauna Pictures and Profiles." ThoughtCo, Feb. 16, 2021, thoughtco.com/giant-mammal-and-megafauna-4043337.
Strauss, Bob. (2021, February 16). Giant Mammal and Megafauna Pictures and Profiles. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/giant-mammal-and-megafauna-4043337
Strauss, Bob. "Giant Mammal and Megafauna Pictures and Profiles." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/giant-mammal-and-megafauna-4043337 (accessed July 18, 2022).
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During the latter part of the Cenozoic Era—from about 50 million years ago to the end of the last Ice Age— prehistoric mammals were significantly bigger (and stranger) than their modern counterparts. On the following slides, you'll find pictures and detailed profiles of over 80 different giant mammals and megafauna that ruled the earth after the dinosaurs went extinct, ranging from Aepycamelus to the Woolly Rhino.
Name: Aepycamelus (Greek for "tall camel"); pronounced AY-peeh-CAM-ell-us
Historical Epoch: Middle-Late Miocene (15-5 million years ago)
Size and Weight: About 10 feet high at the shoulder and 1,000-2,000 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics: Large size; long, giraffe-like legs and neck
Right off the bat, there are two odd things about Aepycamelus: first, this megafauna camel looked more like a giraffe, with its long legs and slender neck, and second, it lived in Miocene North America (not a place one normally associates with camels). Befitting its giraffe-like appearance, Aepycamelus spent most of its time nibbling the leaves off high trees, and since it lived well before the earliest humans no one ever attempted to take it for a ride.
Name: Agriarctos (Greek for "dirt bear"); pronounced AG-ree-ARK-tose
Habitat: Woodlands of western Europe
Historical Epoch: Late Miocene (11 million years ago)
Size and Weight: About four feet long and 100 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics: Small size; quadrupedal posture; dark fur with white spots
As rare as it is today, the Giant Panda's family tree stretches all the way back to the Miocene epoch, over 10 million years ago. Exhibit A is the newly discovered Agriarctos, a pint-sized (only 100 pounds or so) prehistoric bear that spent much of its time scampering up trees, either to harvest nuts and fruit or to evade the attention of large predators. Based on its limited fossil remains, paleontologists believe Agriarctos possessed a coat of dark fur with light patches around its eyes, belly and tail—a stark contrast to the Giant Panda, on which these two colors are distributed much more evenly.
Name: Agriotherium (Greek for "sour beast"); pronounced AG-ree-oh-THEE-ree-um
Habitat: Plains of North America, Eurasia and Africa
Historical Period: Late Miocene-Early Pleistocene (10-2 million years ago)
Size and Weight: Up to eight feet long and 1,000-1,500 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics: Large size; long legs; dog-like build
One of the largest bears that ever lived, the half-ton Agriotherium achieved a remarkably wide distribution during the Miocene and Pliocene epochs, reaching as far as North America, Eurasia and Africa. Agriotherium was characterized by its relatively long legs (which gave it a vaguely dog-like appearance) and blunt snout studded with massive, bone-crushing teeth—a hint that this prehistoric bear may have scavenged the carcasses of other megafauna mammals rather than hunting live prey. Like modern bears, Agriotherium supplemented its diet with fish, fruit, vegetables, and pretty much any other kind of digestible food it happened across.
The jaws of Andrewsarchus—the largest terrestrial mammalian predator that ever lived—were so huge and powerful that, conceivably, this Eocene meat-eater might have been able to bite through the shells of giant turtles.
Name: Arsinoitherium (Greek for "Arsenoe's beast," after a mythical queen of Egypt); pronounced ARE-sih-noy-THEE-re-um
Historical Epoch: Late Eocene-Early Oligocene (35-30 million years ago)
Size and Weight: About 10 feet long and one ton
Distinguishing Characteristics: Rhinoceros-like trunk; two conical horns on head; quadrupedal posture; primitive teeth
Although it wasn't directly ancestral to the modern rhinoceros, Arsinoitherium (the name refers to the mythical Egyptian Queen Arsenoe) cut a very rhino-like profile, with its stumpy legs, squat trunk and herbivorous diet. However, what really set this prehistoric mammal apart from the other megafauna of the Eocene epoch were the two large, conical, pointed horns jutting out from the middle of its forehead, which were likely a sexually selected characteristic rather than anything meant to intimidate predators (meaning that males with bigger, pointier horns had a better chance of pairing up with females during mating season). Arsinoitherium was also equipped with 44 flat, stumpy teeth in its jaws, which were well-adapted to chewing the extra-tough plants of its Egyptian habitat circa 30 million years ago.
Name: Astrapotherium (Greek for "lightning beast"); pronounced AS-trap-oh-THEE-ree-um
Historical Epoch: Early-Middle Miocene (23-15 million years ago)
Size and Weight: About nine feet long and 500-1,000 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics: Long, squat trunk; long neck and head
During the Miocene epoch, South America was cut off from the rest of the world's continents, resulting in the evolution of a bizarre array of mammalian megafauna . Astrapotherium was a typical example: this hooved ungulate (a distant relative of horses ) looked like a cross between an elephant, a tapir, and a rhinoceros, with a short, prehensile trunk and powerful tusks. The nostrils of Astrapotherium were also set unusually high, a hint that this prehistoric herbivore may have pursued a partly amphibious lifestyle, like a modern hippopotamus. (By the way, Astropotherium's name—Greek for "lightning beast"—seems particularly inappropriate for what must have been a slow, ponderous plant eater.)
The Auroch is one of the few prehistoric animals to be commemorated in ancient cave paintings. As you might have guessed, this ancestor of modern cattle figured on the dinner menu of early humans, who helped drive the Auroch into extinction.
Befitting its similarity to the duck-billed dinosaurs that preceded it by tens of millions of years, the giant hooved mammal Brontotherium had an unusually small brain for its size—which may have made it ripe picking for the predators of Eocene North America.
Name: Camelops (Greek for "camel face"); pronounced CAM-ell-ops
Historical Epoch: Pleistocene-Modern (2 million-10,000 years ago)
Size and Weight: About seven feet tall and 500-1,000 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics: Large size; thick trunk with long neck
Camelops is famous for two reasons: first, this was the last prehistoric camel to be indigenous to North America (until it was hunted to extinction by human settlers about 10,000 years ago), and second, a fossil specimen was unearthed in 2007 during excavations for a Wal-Mart store in Arizona (hence this individual's informal name, the Wal-Mart Camel).
The Cave Bear ( Ursus spelaeus ) was one of the most common megafauna mammals of Pleistocene Europe. An astonishing number of Cave Bear fossils have been discovered, and some caves in Europe have yielded literally thousands of bones.
Name: Myotragus (Greek for "mouse goat"); pronounced MY-oh-TRAY-gus; also known as the Cave Goat
Habitat: Mediterranean islands of Majorca and Minorca
Historical Epoch: Pleistocene-Modern (2 million-5,000 years ago)
Size and Weight: About four feet long and 100 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics: Relatively small size; forward-facing eyes; possible cold-blooded metabolism
You might think it strange that a creature as ordinary and inoffensive as a prehistoric goat would make headlines around the world, but Myotragus merits the attention: according to one analysis, this smallish "Cave Goat" adapted to the sparse food of its island habitat by evolving a cold-blooded metabolism, similar to that of reptiles. (In fact, the authors of the paper compared fossilized Myotragus bones to those of contemporary reptiles, and found similar growth patterns.)
As you might expect, not everyone subscribes to the theory that Myotragus had a reptile-like metabolism (which would make it the first mammal in history to have ever evolved this bizarre trait). More likely, this was simply a slow, stubby, ponderous, small-brained Pleistocene herbivore that had the luxury of not having to defend itself against natural predators. An important clue is that Myotragus had forward-facing eyes; similar grazers have wide-set eyes, the better to detect carnivores approaching from all directions.
Like other opportunistic predators of the Pleistocene epoch, Cave Hyenas preyed on early humans and hominids, and they weren't shy about stealing the hard-earned kill of packs of Neanderthals and other large predators.
The Cave Lion came by its name not because it lived in caves, but because intact skeletons have been discovered in Cave Bear habitats (Cave Lions preyed on hibernating Cave Bears, which must have seemed like a good idea until their victims woke up.)
Why would a one-ton megafauna mammal be named after a pebble, rather than a boulder? Simple: the "chalico" part of its name refers to Chalicotherium's pebble-like teeth, which it used to grind down tough vegetation.
Name: Chamitataxus (Greek for "taxon from Chamita"); pronounced CAM-ee-tah-TAX-us
Habitat: Woodlands of North America
Historical Epoch: Late Miocene (6 million years ago)
Size and Weight: About one foot long and one pound
Distinguishing Characteristics: Slender build; good smell and hearing
Chamitataxus runs counter to the general rule that every modern mammal had a plus-sized ancestor lurking millions of years back in its family tree. Somewhat disappointingly, this badger of the Miocene epoch was about the same size as its descendants of today, and it seems to have behaved in much the same way, locating small animals with its excellent smell and hearing and killing them with a quick bite to the neck. Perhaps the small proportions of Chamitataxus can be explained by the fact that it coexisted with Taxidea, the American Badger, which still annoys homeowners in the present day.
Perhaps because efficient predators were in short supply during the early Eocene epoch, Coryphodon was a slow, lumbering beast, with an unusually small brain that beckons comparison with those of its dinosaur predecessors.
The Miocene pig Daeodon (formerly known as Dinohyus) was roughly the size and weight of a modern rhinoceros, with a broad, flat, warthog-like face complete with "warts" (actually fleshy wattles supported by bone).
Name: Deinogalerix (Greek for "terrible polecat"); pronounced DIE-no-GAL-eh-rix
Habitat: Woodlands of western Europe
Historical Epoch: Late Miocene (10-5 million years ago)
Size and Weight: About two feet long and 10 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics: Large size; rat-like tail and feet
It's true that most mammals of the Miocene epoch grew to plus sizes, but Deinogalerix—perhaps it should be better known as the dino-hedgehog—had an added incentive: this prehistoric mammal seems to have been restricted to a few isolated islands off the southern coast of Europe, a sure evolutionary recipe for gigantism. About the size of a modern tabby cat, Deinogalerix probably made its living by feeding on insects and the carcasses of dead animals. Although it was directly ancestral to modern hedgehogs, for all intents and purposes Deinogalerix looked like a giant rat, with its naked tail and feet, narrow snout, and (one imagines) overall peskiness.
Name: Desmostylus (Greek for "chain pillar"); pronounced DEZ-moe-STYLE-us
Habitat: Shorelines of the northern Pacific
Historical Epoch: Miocene (23-5 million years ago)
Size and Weight: About six feet long and 500 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics: Hippo-like body; shovel-shaped tusks in lower jaw
If you happened across Desmostylus 10 or 15 million years ago, you might be forgiven for mistaking it for a direct ancestor of either hippopotamuses or elephants: this megafauna mammal had a thick, hippo-like body, and the shovel-shaped tusks jutting out of its lower jaw were reminiscent of prehistoric proboscids like Amebelodon . The fact is, though, that this semi-aquatic creature was a true evolutionary one-off, inhabiting its own obscure order, "Desmostylia," on the mammalian family tree. (The other members of this order include the truly obscure, but amusingly named, Behemotops, Cornwallius and Kronokotherium.) It was once believed that Desmostylus and its equally strange relatives subsisted on seaweed, but a more likely diet now seems to have been the wide range of marine vegetation surrounding the northern Pacific basin.
This slow-moving prehistoric armadillo Doedicurus was not only covered by a large, domed, armored shell, but it possessed a clubbed, spiked tail similar to those of the ankylosaur and stegosaur dinosaurs that preceded it by tens of millions of years.
For all its size, bulk and presumed aggressiveness, the single-horned Elasmotherium was a relatively gentle herbivore—and one adapted to eating grass rather than leaves or shrubs, as evidenced by its heavy, oversized, flat teeth and lack of incisors.
Name: Embolotherium (Greek for "battering ram beast"); pronounced EM-bo-low-THEE-ree-um
Historical Epoch: Late Eocene-Early Oligocene (35-30 million years ago)
Size and Weight: About 15 feet long and 1-2 tons
Distinguishing Characteristics: Large size; broad, flat shield on the snout
Embolotherium was one of the central Asian representatives of the family of large herbivorous mammals known as brontotheres ("thunder beasts"), which were ancient (and distant) cousins of the modern rhinoceros. Of all the brontotheres (which also included Brontotherium ), Embolotherium had the most distinctive "horn," which actually looked more like a broad, flat shield sticking up from the end of its snout. As with all such animal accouterments, this odd structure may have been used for display and/or to produce sounds, and it was doubtless a sexually selected characteristic as well (meaning males with more prominent nose ornaments mated with more females).
Name: Eobasileus (Greek for "dawn emperor"); pronounced EE-oh-bass-ih-LAY-us
Historical Epoch: Middle-Late Eocene (40-35 million years ago)
Size and Weight: About 12 feet long and one ton
Distinguishing Characteristics: Rhino-like body; three matched horns on skull; short tusks
For all intents and purposes, Eobasileus can be considered a slightly smaller version of the more famous Uintatherium , yet another prehistoric megafauna mammal that roamed the plains of Eocene North America. Like Uintatherium, Eobasileus cut a vaguely rhino-shaped profile and had an exceptionally knobby head sporting three matched pairs of blunt horns as well as short tusks. It's still unclear how these "uintatheres" of 40 million years ago were related to modern herbivores; all we can say for sure, and leave it at that, is that they were very large ungulates (hooved mammals).
Name: Eremotherium (Greek for "solitary beast"); pronounced EH-reh-moe-THEE-ree-um
Habitat: Plains of North and South America
Historical Epoch: Pleistocene-Modern (2 million-10,000 years ago)
Size and Weight: About 20 feet long and 1-2 tons
Distinguishing Characteristics: Large size; long, clawed hands
Yet another of the giant sloths that prowled the Americas during the Pleistocene epoch, Eremotherium differed from the equally huge Megatherium in that it was technically a ground, and not a tree, sloth (and thus more closely related to Megalonyx , the North American ground sloth discovered by Thomas Jefferson). Judging by its long and arms and huge, clawed hands, Eremotherium made its living by mauling and eating trees; it lasted well into the last Ice Age, only to be hunted to extinction by the early human settlers of North and South America.
Name: Ernanodon; pronounced er-NAN-oh-don
Historical Epoch: Late Paleocene (57 million years ago)
Size and Weight: About two feet long and 5-10 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics: Small size; long claws on front hands
Sometimes, all it takes to propel an obscure prehistoric mammal onto the evening news is the discovery of a new, almost intact specimen. The central Asian Ernanodon has actually been known to paleontologists for over 30 years, but the "type fossil" was in such bad shape that few took notice. Now, the discovery of new Ernanodon specimen in Mongolia has cast new light on this strange mammal, which lived in the late Paleocene epoch, less than 10 million years after the dinosaurs went extinct. Long story short, Ernanodon was a small, digging mammal that seems to have been ancestral to modern pangolins (which it probably resembled).
Name: Eucladoceros (Greek for "well-branched horns"); pronounced YOU-clad-OSS-eh-russ
Historical Epoch: Pliocene-Pleistocene (5 million-10,000 years ago)
Size and Weight: About eight feet long and 750-1,000 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics: Large size; large, ornate antlers
In most respects, Eucladoceros wasn't much different from modern deers and moose, to which this megafauna mammal was directly ancestral. What really set Eucladoceros apart from its modern descendants were the large, branching, multi-tined antlers sported by the males, which were used for intra-species recognition within the herd and also were a sexually selected characteristic (that is, males with bigger, more ornate horns were more likely to impress females). Oddly enough, the antlers of Eucladoceros don't seem to have grown in any regular pattern, possessing a fractal, branching shape that must have been an impressive sight during mating season.
Name: Eurotamandua ("European tamandua," a modern genus of anteater); pronounced YOUR-oh-tam-ANN-do-ah
Habitat: Woodlands of western Europe
Historical Epoch: Middle Eocene (50-40 million years ago)
Size and Weight: About three feet long and 25 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics: Large size; powerful front limbs; long, tube-like snout
In an odd reversal of the usual pattern with megafauna mammals , Eurotamandua wasn't significantly bigger than modern anteaters; in fact, this three-foot-long creature was considerably smaller than the modern Giant Anteater, which can attain lengths of over six feet. However, there's no mistaking Eurotamandua's diet, which can be inferred from its long, tubular snout, powerful, clawed front limbs (which were used for digging up anthills), and muscular, gripping tail (which held it in place as it settled in for a nice, long me
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