Teleoceras

Taxobox
name = "Teleoceras"
fossil_range = early Miocene to early PlioceneProthero, 2005, pp. 189-194.]

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image_width = 250px
image_caption = "Teleoceras"
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Mammalia
ordo = Perissodactyla
familia = Rhinocerotidae
genus = †"Teleoceras"
genus_authority = Hatcher, 1894
type_species = †"Teleoceras major"
subdivision_ranks = SpeciesProthero, 2005, p. 94.]
subdivision =
* †"T. americanum"
* †"T. brachyrhinum"
* †"T. hicksi"
* †"T. fossiger"
* †"T. guymonense"
* †"T. major"
* †"T. medicornutum"
* †"T. meridianum"
* †"T. proterum"
synonyms =
* †"Mesoceras" (Cook, 1930)McKenna & Bell, 1997, p. 483.]
* †"Paraphelops" Lane, 1927Prothero, 2005, p. 122.]

"Teleoceras" is an extinct genus of grazing rhinoceros that lived in North America during the Miocene epoch, which ended about 5.3 million years ago, all the way to the early Pliocene epoch (Prothero, 2005). "Teleoceras" had shorter legs than modern rhinos, and a barrel chest, making its build more like that of a hippopotamus than a modern rhino. Like the hippo, it was also semi-aquatic. "Teleoceras" had a single small nasal horn.

"Teleoceras" is the most common fossil in the Ashfall Fossil Beds of Nebraska. In fact, its remains were so numerous and concentrated that the building housing the greatest concentraion of Ashfall fossils is dubbed the "Rhino Barn". Most of the skeletons are preserved in a nearly-complete state. One extraordinary specimen includes the remains of a "Teleoceras" calf trying to suckle from its mother.

ee also

*Ashfall Fossil Beds

Notes

References

*McKenna, Malcolm C., and Bell, Susan K. 1997. "Classification of Mammals Above the Species Level." Columbia University Press, New York, 631 pp. ISBN 0-231-11013-8
*Prothero, Donald R. 2005. "The Evolution of North American Rhinoceroses." Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 218 pp. ISBN 0-521-83240-3

External links

* [http://ashfall.unl.edu/ashfallanimals.html Ashfall Fossil Beds]