Gobiatherium
Name:
Gobiatherium
(Gobi beast - after the Gobi Desert).
Phonetic: Go-bee-ah-fee-ree-um.
Named By: Henry Fairfield Osborn & Walter
W. Granger - 1932.
Classification: Chordata, Mammalia, Dinocerata,
Uintatheriidae, Gobiatheriinae.
Species: G. mirificum
(type), G. major, G. monolobotum.
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: Estimated up to 3 meters long for largest
specimens.
Known locations: Asia.
Time period: Lutetian through to Priabonian of the
Eocene.
Fossil representation: Several specimens.
Gobiatherium is the type genus of its own specific group of uintatheres, the Gobiatheriinae. This is because Gobiatherium lacks the skull horns and tusks that are common features in it relatives, though Gobiatherium still retains some distinguishing characteristics of its own. These include well developed cheek bones and an expanded nasal area where the bones rise up into a form of snout crest, something that might have been a support for a specialised growth of soft tissue. Gobiatherium possibly shared its habitat with pantodont mammals like Hypercoryphodon.
Further reading
- Coryphodonts and
uintatheres from the Mongolian expedition of 1930. - American Museum
Novitates 552:1-16. - H. F. Osborn & W. Granger - 1932.
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