|
 |
 |
|
 |
SOS
Rhino
: In the News :
Rhinoceros Fossils Unearthed In Kirikkale |
| |
Rhinoceros Fossils Unearthed In Kirikkale |
| |
KIRIKKALE - A team of scientists unearthed in the central Anatolian city of Kirikkale, fossils of Baluchitherium, a kind of gigantic hornless rhinoceros lived in Asia some 25 million years ago, .
Turkey is the fifth country besides Pakistan, Kazakhstan, the People's Republic of China and Mongolia in which Baluchitherium fossils were found.
The fossils belonged to a male, female and a six-month-old baby rhinoceros.
Baluchitherium is believed to have been the largest land mammal ever to have lived. They went extinct 10 million years ago.
It stood 8 meter high at the shoulders and was 12 meter long. Its skull was about 2 meter in length, its limbs were long and massive, and it weighed about 20 tons. It was a herbivore that stripped leaves from trees with its down-pointing, tusk-like upper teeth that occluded forward-pointing lower teeth.
Baluchitherium means ''beast from Baluchistan'' in Pakistan, where the first fossils were discovered.
The fossils will be displayed at Ankara's Natural History Museum.
Published: 7/5/2006
The Anatolian Times
http://www.anatoliantimes.com/hbr2.asp?id=132059
Privacy Policy
|
|
