Helohyidae were a group of artiodactyl mammals. They were most prominent in the mid-to-upper Eocene (~50 to 39 million years ago).
Helohyidae were a group of artiodactyl mammals. They were most prominent in the mid-to-upper Eocene (~50 to 39 million years ago).
==Description== Helohyidae share vague similarities to present-day pigs, though were slimmer in build. They possessed prominent canines and molars with bunodont cusps, bulging dental wreaths, and wrinkled enamel. Their upper molars were usually squared, due to the enlargement and displacement of the metaconule, but there was also a small hypocone and hypoconule. The paraconule was reduced and there was no mesostyle. Their lower molars increased in size as they proceeded to the bottom of the jaw, and the paraconid was small or absent. Some forms (e.g. Gobiohyus) possessed small diastemas that separated the premolars from each other. The snout was usually elongated (e.g. in Helohyus), but in some forms ascribed to this family (Achaenodon), it was very short. Compared to other primitive artiodactyls such as dichobunids, they possessed higher sagittal ridges; the genus Achaenodon, in particular, possessed a large sagittal crest and its size was much larger than those of other helohyids.
Discovered by embedding cosine similarity (sentence-transformers MiniLM, 384-dim).