Entelodon
Name: Entelodon
(Perfect teeth).
Phonetic: En-tel-o-don.
Named By: Aymard - 1846.
Synonyms: Elotherium.
Classification: Chordata, Mammalia,
Arctiodactyla, Entelodontidae.
Species: E. magnus (type),
E.
antiquus, E. aymardi, E. dirus, E. gobiensis, E.
ronzonii.
Diet: Omnivore?
Size: Around 3 meters long.
Known locations: Across Eurasia.
Time period: Bartonian of the Eocene through to
Rupelian of the Oligocene.
Fossil representation: Many specimens.
Along
with Daeodon
from North America and Paraentelodon
from Asia, Entelodon
is one of the largest currently known entelodonts,
Eocene
to Miocene era mammals that are interpreted as pig-like although their
exact relationship to pigs is still strongly debated. The broad
distribution of Entelodon species across Eurasia
reveal that it was a
successful animal. This success may have been down to an omnivorous
diet which means that Entelodon had the capability
to switch and adapt
to different food sources. Additionally the large size of Entelodon
not only meant that fully grown adults were unlikely to be attacked by
creodont predators such as Hyaenodon,
but Entelodon may have also
been in a position to physically drive these predators away from their
kills and feed upon the carcasses of animals themselves.
Since
the appearance of entelodonts exploded in popular media from the start
of the twentieth-first century there has been some confusion over the
name Entelodon and the term entelodont with respect
to what they mean.
In the simplest terms, a group of animals is named after the first
of their kind that was described to science. In this case Entelodon
was the first of its kind that was described and so its name was used
as a basis for the creation of the Entelodontidae. Members of the
Entelodontidae are referred to as ‘entelodonts’ and while this can
include the genus Entelodon, it can also include
other genera that
belong to the group Entelodontidae such as Archaeotherium
and Daeodon
amongst others. So to reiterate, an entelodont is any animal that
belongs to a genus that is assigned to the Entelodontidae, while an
Entelodon is an animal that is assigned to the genus
Entelodon and
because Entelodon is assigned to Entelodontidae,
an Entelodon may
also be referred to as an entelodont, but not the other way around
unless the entelodont in question is actually an Entelodon.
This is
actually quite easy to pick upon when you remember that genus names
like Entelodon always start with a capital letter
and are printed in
italics, while entelodont is left in standard print and is never
capitalised, unless of course it is the first word in a new sentence.
Further reading
- The fauna of the Houldjin gravels. American Museum Novitates 97:1-6.
- W. D. Matthew & W. Granger - 1923.
- Entelodon orientalis n.sp. (Suiformes) from the Oligocene of the Gobi
Desert, Mongolia. - Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 10(2):281-285. - D.
Dashzeveg - 1965.
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