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Re: galloping Paraceratherium
I guess I'll have to start using the rather bland name
Paraceratherium, which appears to preoccupy the more distinctive name
Indricotherium (although I don't have to like it).
Anyway, it is my understanding that there is little (if any) temporal
overlap of Paraceratherium with the earlier Andrewsarchus (correct me if I
am wrong), but I would imagine Andrewsarchus probably ate (scavenged on??)
some of Paraceratherium's Middle-Late Eocene ancestors. At least the teeth
of Andrewsarchus seems to make it more of scavenger than Tyrannosaurus might
have been.
Although Andrewsarchus was the biggest known mesonychian, I don't
think it was the last (as I recall there were some smaller mesonychians
which survived into the earliest Oligocene, but I can't seem to find their
generic names tonight). What is not clear to me is whether there are any
known specimens of Paraceratherium in the Upper Eocene. Wish I had a copy
of McKenna and Bell, 1997, to check on this, but I don't.
------Ken
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