Sivatherium
Name:
Sivatherium
(Siva’s beast).
Phonetic: See-vah-fee-ree-um.
Named By: Hugh Falconer & Proby Thomas
Cautley - 1836.
Synonyms: Libytherium maurusium.
Classification: Chordata, Mammalia,
Artiodactyla, Giraffidae, Sivatheriinae.
Species: S. giganteum
(type), S.
hendeyi, S. maurusium, S. olduvaiense.
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: 2.2 meters tall at the shoulder.
Known locations: Across Africa, India.
Time period: Late Pliocene through to early
Holocene.
Fossil representation: Multiple specimens.
Initially
thought to be some form of elephant and later an antelope, the
correct identification of Sivatherium as a giraffe
did not come about
until Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire identified it as one. However this
theory was not universally accepted until close analysis found that the
skull horns would have been covered by skin like in giraffes, and not
keratin like in antelopes. The skull ornamentation of Sivatherium
is composed of two small ossicones (similar to those of a giraffe)
that are above the eyes, and two larger horns that rise up from the
back of the skull. It is these two horns that have given rise to the
term ‘moose-like’ which is often applied to Sivatherium.
Moose-like
has also sometimes been used to describe the general build of
Sivatherium which has also has a strong build around
the shoulders on a
body that is supported by long relatively thin legs. Sivatherium
likely had powerful neck muscles that supported and stabilised the
head from the additional weight to the horns on top of it. This form
may seem bizarre to us today, but many prehistoric giraffes had
similar body proportions to Sivatherium and today
the closest living
animal in form is the okapi (Okapia johnstoni),
another
conservatively proportioned giraffe from central Africa.
Back
in the early days of is discovery Sivatherium was
once considered to
have had a specialised soft tissue development around the mouth like a
trunk or extended movable lip that would help it to reach and scoop up
food from the ground. Today in light of the fact that we know
Sivatherium to have been a giraffe this is highly
unlikely for two
reasons. First is that giraffes carry their heads high so that they
can reach to feed from trees, something that reduces competition
between them and other herbivores that can only feed from lower down.
Second is that giraffes today have long prehensile tongues that they
can wrap around branches to strip off surprisingly large amounts of
vegetation. Although so far not known for certain, it would be
reasonable to think that Sivatherium as well as
many other prehistoric
giraffes had similar tongues adapted for this way of feeding.
Further reading
- On the Sivatherium giganteum, a new fossil
Ruminant Genus, from the
Valley of the Markanda, in the Siv�lik branch of the Sub-Him�layan
Mountains - Philosophical Magazine Series 3 - Vol 9, issue 53 - Hugh
Falconer M. D. & Captain P. T. Cautley - 1836.
- Sivatherium maurusium (Pomel) (Giraffidae,
Mammalia) du Pl�istoc�ne
de la R�publique de Djibouti [Sivatherium maurusium
(Pomel)
(Giraffidae, Mammalia) Pleistocene of the Republic of Djibouti]. -
Pal�ontologische Zeitschrift - Vol 59, issue3-4 p311-321 - Denis
Geraads - 1985.
- Pliocene Giraffidae (Mammalia) from the Hadar Formation of Hadar and
Ledi-Geraru, Lower Awash, Ethiopia - Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology
33(2):470-481. - Denis Geraads, Kaye Reed & Rene Bobe - 2013.
- The extinct, giant giraffid Sivatherium giganteum: skeletal
reconstruction and body mass estimation. - Biology Letters. 12 (1):
20150940. - Christopher Basu, Peter L. Falkingham & John R.
Hutchinson - 2016.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Random favourites
 |
 |
 |