Menoceras

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Menoceras
Fossil range: early Miocene[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Perissodactyla
Family: Rhinocerotidae
Genus: †Menoceras
(Troxell, 1921)
Type species
†Diceratherium arikarense
Species[2]
  • †M. arikarense
  • †M. barbouri
Synonyms
  • †Moschoedestes Stevens, 1969[3]

Menoceras was an extinct pig-sized rhinoceros that roamed the plains of the North American mid-west during the early Miocene Epoch (Prothero, 2005). Because of the massive accumulations of fossil bones of this animal, particularly at Agate Springs Nebraska, it seems safe to assume that they lived and died in large herds.

Male Menoceras sported two horns side by side at the tip of the nose, whereas the females had no horns. All other rhino genera, save the related genus Diceratherium, have their horns arranged one behind the other.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Prothero, 2005, p. 189.
  2. ^ Prothero, 2005, pp. 59.
  3. ^ Prothero, 2005, pp. 65-67.

[edit] References

  • Prothero, Donald R. 2005. The Evolution of North American Rhinoceroses. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 218 pp. ISBN 0-521-83240-3
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