Daeodon

Daeodon Temporal range: Early Miocene
Daeodon skeleton
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Artiodactyla
Family:	†Entelodontidae
Genus:	†Daeodon Cope, 1879
Species
†D. shoshonensis (type) Cope, 1879
Synonyms
Ammodon Marsh, 1893 Dinochoerus Peterson, 1905 Dinohyus Peterson, 1906

Daeodon (formerly Dinohyus, "terrible hog"), one of the largest, if not the largest, entelodont artiodactyls, lived 25-18 million years ago in North America. The 3.6 m (12 ft) long, 2.1 m-2.6m (7 ft-8ft 6in) tall (at-shoulder), 1 m long skull, 1000 kg mass animal strongly resembled a giant, monstrous pig or warthog, possessing huge jaws with prominent tusks and flaring cheekbones. It possibly was a huge, bone-crushing scavenger and predator, found at Agate Springs Quarry. ^[1] It had long skull bones under its eyes and bony protrusions on the lower jaw, not dissimilar to the 'warts' of the warthog, which may have supported jaw muscles. The well-known genus Dinohyus ("terrible pig") has now been synonymized with Daeodon, as the latter is the earlier name, having priority.^[2]

Front view of skeleton

References

1. ^ Prothero, Donald R. (2005). "After the dinosaurs. The age of mammals".
2. ^ Lucas, S.G., Emry, R.J., and Foss, S.E. (1997). "Taxonomy and distribution of Daeodon, an Oligocene-Miocene entelodont (Mammalia: Artiodactyla) from North America." Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 111(2): 425-435.

External links

Abstract of the 1998 paper on Daeodon taxonomy (link no longer valid 2008/05/15)

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