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Numidotherium
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Numidotherium

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Numidotherium (from Numidia, and Ancient Greek θηρίον (thēríon), meaning "beast") is an extinct genus of early proboscideans, discovered in 1984, that lived during the middle Eocene of North Africa some 46 million years ago. It was about tall at the shoulder and weighed about .

Wikidata facts

Parent taxon
Numidotheriidae
Image
Numidotherium koholense skull.png
Show 4 more facts
taxon name
Numidotherium
taxon rank
genus
Commons category
Numidotherium
time period
Eocene
Sources (2)

via Wikidata · CC0

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Encyclopedic overview

5 sections
Contents
  • Description
  • Discovery
  • Classification
  • Paleobiology
  • References

Numidotherium (from Numidia, and Ancient Greek θηρίον (thēríon), meaning "beast") is an extinct genus of early proboscideans, discovered in 1984, that lived during the middle Eocene of North Africa some 46 million years ago. It was about tall at the shoulder and weighed about .

The type species, N. koholense, is known from an almost complete skeleton from the site of El Kohol, southern Algeria, dating from the early/middle Eocene period. The animal had the size and the appearance of a modern tapir. In appearance, it was more slender and more plantigrade than an elephant, its closest modern relative.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Numidotherium” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.