Daeodon

Daeodon
Temporal range: Early Miocene
Daeodon skeleton
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Artiodactyla
Family: †Entelodontidae
Genus: †Daeodon
Cope, 1879
Species
  • †D. shoshonensis (type)
    Cope, 1879
Synonyms
  • Ammodon Marsh, 1893
  • Dinochoerus Peterson, 1905
  • Dinohyus Peterson, 1906

Daeodon (formerly Dinohyus, "terrible hog"), one of the largest, if not the largest, entelodont artiodactyls, lived 25-18 million years ago in North America. The 3.6 m (12 ft) long, about 1.8 m at the shoulder, 90 cm long skulled, 600 - 1000 kg mass animal strongly resembled a giant, monstrous pig or warthog, possessing huge jaws with prominent tusks and flaring cheekbones. It possibly was a huge, bone-crushing scavenger and predator, found at Agate Springs Quarry. [1] It had long skull bones under its eyes and bony protrusions on the lower jaw, not dissimilar to the 'warts' of the warthog, which may have supported jaw muscles. The well-known genus Dinohyus ("terrible pig") has now been synonymized with Daeodon, as the latter is the earlier name, having priority.[2]

References

  1. ^ Prothero, Donald R. (2005). "After the dinosaurs. The age of mammals".
  2. ^ Lucas, S.G., Emry, R.J., and Foss, S.E. (1997). "Taxonomy and distribution of Daeodon, an Oligocene-Miocene entelodont (Mammalia: Artiodactyla) from North America." Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 111(2): 425-435.

External links

Abstract of the 1998 paper on Daeodon taxonomy (link no longer valid 2008/05/15)