Paleo Profiles: Paraceratherium

For 11 million years a genus of giant rhinos that looked like the long-necked sauropod dinosaurs mixed with a giraffe and white rhino dominated central Asia. These giant rhinos were Paraceratherium, the largest of a branch of the rhino-family called the indricotheres. Paraceratherium was a titan and was the second largest land mammal to ever

Paleo Profiles: Titanoboa

In 1912 US former president Theodore Roosevelt, on behalf of the Bronx Zoo, offered $1,000 if anyone could find a snake over 30 foot in length. Over the next century, when the offer was continued and modified to reflect inflation, people came close but no 30 foot long snake was found. That is until 2009

Paleo Profiles: Livyatan

In the seas of South America, around 8 million years ago, a creature straight out of the Bible dominated. When palaeontologists found its fossils in 2010 they gave it the name of a water-dwelling beast of the apocalypse out of Abrahmic belief – they named it after the leviathan. This animal was a sperm whale

Paleo Profiles: Propalaeotherium and Eurohippus

Horse evolution is a fascinating tale of twists and turns until we reached the current form that we know today. However, there were many different starts and potential new branches in the evolution of horses, some which could have produced a different branch in the horse evolutionary tree. We’re looking at two of these potential

Paleo Profiles: Teratornis

Today, the largest flying animal in North America is the majestic Californian condor. That is until the extinction of a condor-like bird 10,000 years ago – Teratornis. This close relative of modern vultures and condors was a versatile bird, and its wingspan was equal to that of the current largest bird – the wandering albatross.

Paleo Profiles: Gigantopithecus

Once upon a time a real King Kong lived. It might not have been large enough to carry someone up the Empire State Building while fighting the US airforce, or battle a giant radioactive dinosaur, but it was a giant. Gigantopithecus truly deserves the name ‘Giant Ape’. From southern China and southeast Asia this giant

Paleo Profiles: Chalicotherium

There are many odd and diverse looking extinct mammals out there, and one is the Chalicotherium. A relative of horses, rhinos, and tapirs, they resembled a strange mix of ground sloths, horses, and gorillas which walked on their knuckles. Despite the chalicotheres looking so strange they were incredibly successful – from 46.2 million years ago

Paleo Profiles: Elasmotherium

Reconstruction by W.S. van der Merwe The Ice Age has become synonymous with larger than life woolly animals ranging from the Megaloceros, a deer with antlers the same length as a human is high, the woolly rhino Coelodonta, and the famous woolly mammoth. However, another woolly rhino roamed the plains of Ice Age Eurasia –

Paleo Profiles: Megatherium

A Megatherium, from the London Natural History Museum Visitors to the Natural History Museum in London in the second half of the nineteenth century gasped in awe upon seeing a giant skeleton. Visitors today may do so at the animatronic Tyrannosaurus, the long-necked sauropod Camarasaurus, or perhaps Dippy, the Diplodocus who until recent years dominated the

Paleo Profiles: Megalodon

The jaws of megalodon in the American Museum of Natural History Welcome to our first Paleo Profile! As mentioned in our Introduction I am not a palaeontologist but rather a palaeontology enthusiast so this is not going a more authoritative look at the past. Anyway, with that out of the way we can jump right in. Millions