Palaeotherium
Name:
Palaeotherium
(Ancient beast).
Phonetic: Pay-lee-o-fee-ree-um.
Named By: Georges Cuvier - 1804.
Classification: Chordata, Mammalia,
Perissodactyla, Palaeotheriidae.
Species: P. curtum, P. duvalii, P.
magnum, P. medium, P. minus, P. muehlbergi, P. parvulum.
*Note - Not all species are recognised by all sources, more
precise details unavailable at the time of writing.
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: About 120 centimetres long, 75 to
140 centimetres high at the shoulder. Measurements vary between
species.
Known locations: Europe, including France,
Germany, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
Time period: Lutetian through to Priabonian of the
Eocene, possibly into the Rupelian of the Oligocene.
Fossil representation: Multiple individuals.
The
many individuals of Palaeotherium recovered from
Eocene era deposits in
Europe indicate that it was one of the most common mammals across
Europe (especially the Western portion) during this time. When
first described by Georges Cuvier, Palaeotherium
was thought to be
related to the ancient Tapirs, but today it is more widely considered
to be a closer relative to primitive horse. In this respect,
Palaeotherium may have shared a more recent common
ancestor with the
horses, and represents a line of mammals that diverged slightly away
from horses, but one that would ultimately not be as successful as
them.
Palaeotherium
was a quadrupedal mammal that was adapted to browsing low vegetation
either near the ground or up to around a meter to one and half meters
above it. It is unlikely that Palaeotherium could
reach much farther
past this mark due to skeletal limitations (depending upon the
specific species). Palaeotherium was a creature
that was well
adapted to the forests that covered most of the Northern Hemisphere
during the Eocene, but as the Eocene continued and passed in to the
Oligocene, and the climate cooled and dried, these forests were
slowly being replaced by grassy plains. The horses for their part
adapted to these new conditions developing different teeth suitable for
processing grass by grazing rather than browsing leaves like their
ancestors. Older forms like Palaeotherium
however, simply did not
change to meet these new ecosystems, and in time went extinct as
newer, better adapted herbivores replaced them.
Further reading
- Mammals from the Bartonian (middle/late Eocene) of the
Hampshire Basin, southern England, J. J. Hooker - 1986.
-
First occurrence of Palaeotheriidae (Perissodactyla) from the
late–middle Eocene of eastern Thrace (Greece). - Comptes Rendus
Palevol. 16 (4): 382–396. - Gr�goire M�tais & Sevket Sen - 2017.
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