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Harry-the-Fox — Paraceratherium- Enhanced Size Comparison

#animal #chart #comparison #odd #size #toed #wildlife #indricotherium #paraceratherium #baluchitherium #perissodactyla #aralotherium #dzungariotherium #paracer #thaumastotherium #prehistoric #prehistoricanimals #prehistoriclife #ungulate
Published: 2016-02-12 02:10:00 +0000 UTC; Views: 17908; Favourites: 200; Downloads: 115
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Description My Tribute. For Tim, the kindest man I ever met, who once told me Paraceratherium was his favorite childhood animal.  Rest in Peace my friend.
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UPDATE 3: Now in very high detail, with corrected anatomy drawing from the Black Rhino's soft tissue.

UPDATE 2: improved background and details.

UPDATE: included a vertical ruler into the background measuring in meters and 10cm intervals.


Animal Info:
Paraceratherium lived during the Oligocene period. It was one of the largest land mammals to have lived, estimated to grow over 8 meters long, reach a shoulder height of 4.8 meters tall (standing taller than many large dinosaurs), and weighing up to 17 tonnes. The only land animals to clearly exceed its size are large sauropods, and possibly the ancient elephant Palaeoloxodon Namadicus.
This animal is known from near-complete remains- mainly missing a couple of vertebrae in its elongated neck. Scientists predict the neck would be between 2 to 2.5 meters long (the latter depicted here- my reasons explained below*).
Complete skull specimens are up to 1.3 meters long (for comparison, a Tyrannosaurus Rex's skull reaches up to 1.5 meters long)!
The body is large, heavy and very wide, while its legs are elongated and thin for such a large animal. With an elongated neck, many predict it browsed high branches in the trees, similar to modern giraffes.
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Artwork design and considerations:
This is a massive overhaul of my previous attempt at Paraceratherium (which was too thickly built).  Like last time, the entire animal has been painted by hand in Photoshop.
Using an array of photographs and diagrams as references to gauge skeletal accuracy, and photographs of live rhinoceroses for muscular and skin anatomy (and texture). Toes, tail, ears, eyes and the general manner the body fits together have also been inferred from rhinos (but the thick wrinkly skin and muscle connecting the chest to the throat has not been included, due to significant differences in skeletal anatomy).

*In considering the length of the neck, I erred to the maximum estimated length. I don't normally do this, but Paraceratherium presents a solid basis for it. With extremely long legs, this animal would need an extremely long neck to be able to reach the ground and drink with minimal  need to bend its legs, and also to exert minimal energy in browsing. Having a longer-reaching neck and snout is a form that applies to almost every ungulate that has ever lived (even Giraffes, which need to splay their legs to balance blood flow while lowering its head benefits from this). Grazing dinosaurs too conformed to the "neck" rule at least. The only megaherbivores that seem to contradict this 'rule' are elephants, as their long trunks fulfill this role instead.
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The length of the head greatly exceeds the length of the skull. Aside from factoring in the consideration above (*) this is a true anatomical feature for modern rhinos, giraffes and many other ungulates whose snout is mostly solid muscle extending far beyond the actual skull (a psuedo trunk of sorts, whose strength and flexibility helps the animal to rip off leaves, branches, grass etc that incisors would struggle to wrap around).

Related content
Comments: 43

Libra1010 [2020-05-04 18:43:12 +0000 UTC]

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Harry-the-Fox In reply to Libra1010 [2020-05-05 02:04:57 +0000 UTC]

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Tello640 In reply to Harry-the-Fox [2020-06-21 18:41:30 +0000 UTC]

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Harry-the-Fox In reply to Tello640 [2020-06-21 23:14:53 +0000 UTC]

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Tello640 In reply to Harry-the-Fox [2020-06-22 02:49:21 +0000 UTC]

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Harry-the-Fox In reply to Tello640 [2020-06-22 11:23:42 +0000 UTC]

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Libra1010 In reply to Harry-the-Fox [2020-05-05 14:55:06 +0000 UTC]

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mortalshinobi [2020-05-03 15:16:58 +0000 UTC]

an herbivore but one of those that is so large just the size alone is intimidating even if it is a peaceful animal

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Harry-the-Fox In reply to mortalshinobi [2020-05-04 03:11:47 +0000 UTC]

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mortalshinobi In reply to Harry-the-Fox [2020-05-04 03:49:14 +0000 UTC]

yeah. kinda like sauropods, i imagine after reaching a certain size this critter wouldn't get attacked by anything.

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Harry-the-Fox In reply to mortalshinobi [2020-05-04 08:13:11 +0000 UTC]

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mortalshinobi In reply to Harry-the-Fox [2020-05-04 15:17:19 +0000 UTC]

yeah. and with the elephants it requires several animals to take one down, not just one. a paraceratherium would require even more. so i'd find it highly unlikely these were hunted too often. i can only imagine their numbers were limited by the amount of food they could consume

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Harry-the-Fox In reply to mortalshinobi [2020-05-05 02:12:16 +0000 UTC]

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mortalshinobi In reply to Harry-the-Fox [2020-05-05 15:23:17 +0000 UTC]

yeah. i imagine something like a hippo or rhino which is thick to begin with. add layers for the size and there's not much any animal can do to it. it's just too big

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Harry-the-Fox In reply to mortalshinobi [2020-05-06 01:31:24 +0000 UTC]

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mortalshinobi In reply to Harry-the-Fox [2020-05-06 14:16:49 +0000 UTC]

yeah. bigger predators seemed to be more of the grab and force down types. then again, we could always be surprised like with the lions and elephants. we just don't know for sure

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Harry-the-Fox In reply to mortalshinobi [2020-05-07 00:05:51 +0000 UTC]

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mortalshinobi In reply to Harry-the-Fox [2020-05-07 00:31:42 +0000 UTC]

yeah. it's like a giraffe elephant that's three times the size. and while sabers can jump high i'm not sure it'd be high enough. as for things like decododon (the terror pig) wouldn't even bother with even the offspring of this thing so big it is.

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Harry-the-Fox In reply to mortalshinobi [2020-05-07 00:48:22 +0000 UTC]

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mortalshinobi In reply to Harry-the-Fox [2020-05-07 02:49:03 +0000 UTC]

yeah. giraffes don't get hunted often because of it as it requires the lions basically getting at their necks somehow. so it's a pretty good defence

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Harry-the-Fox In reply to mortalshinobi [2020-05-07 09:40:38 +0000 UTC]

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mortalshinobi In reply to Harry-the-Fox [2020-05-07 15:52:46 +0000 UTC]

yeah. i've seen a few videos of their trying to take down giraffes and unless they do a jump to bring it down from the neck it's always a struggle to take it down. it actually seems easier to take down the elephants as they can drag them from the ears and can simply weigh them down from the backs. the giraffes aren't so easy to bring down it seems.

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Harry-the-Fox In reply to mortalshinobi [2020-05-09 00:15:13 +0000 UTC]

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mortalshinobi In reply to Harry-the-Fox [2020-05-09 03:03:31 +0000 UTC]

yeah. their intelligences and equipment is more varied than what most people think

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Breakfasttacos In reply to mortalshinobi [2020-06-07 23:37:15 +0000 UTC]

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mortalshinobi In reply to Breakfasttacos [2020-06-08 00:31:06 +0000 UTC]

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Majestic-Colossus [2020-05-03 13:37:54 +0000 UTC]

Lovely update!

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Chuplex [2020-01-27 04:23:22 +0000 UTC]

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Harry-the-Fox In reply to Chuplex [2020-01-27 12:48:25 +0000 UTC]

Absolutely- though I reckon it would be simply a longer version of the long fleshy nose/mouthparts that rhinos already have (I was shocked to learn how much of a rhino's face was prehensile mouthparts.... though it explains how rhinos mainly use their lips to strip foliage, rather than teeth).

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DenistheTyrant [2019-12-30 18:34:58 +0000 UTC]

It’s sad they have been overthrown by Palaeoloxodon Namadicus.

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Harry-the-Fox In reply to DenistheTyrant [2020-01-03 09:40:15 +0000 UTC]

I didn't know that

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christina1969 [2017-04-05 18:14:22 +0000 UTC]

Hidden by Commenter

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Harry-the-Fox In reply to christina1969 [2017-04-05 23:55:21 +0000 UTC]

I certainly will!
Thankyou very much for this resource as well!
(and honestly, those figures make far more sense; the animal would need as long a neck as possible, or else those long skinny legs would be a huge liability).

Update: corrected the figures; and also rephrased a later part generalizing to mega-herbivores better.

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grisador [2016-04-22 13:29:09 +0000 UTC]

I heard this is not the biggest mammal anymore... Is that right ?
[( hasta la vista childhood )]

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Harry-the-Fox In reply to grisador [2016-04-22 15:51:31 +0000 UTC]

Yep, there's an extinct elephant species called "Palaeoloxodon Namadicus" that likely grew even bigger- estimated to be about 5 meters at the shoulder!
Although there are only a few bones (at least a femur, I'm looking into where the others are supposedly coming from), it is assumed to be very similarly-proportioned to other Palaeoloxodon (aka straight-tusked elephant) species (Recki and Antiqus) which are known from more intact specimens.These grew pretty big (about 4m at the shoulder, maybe more), and had a highly robust build, which seems to be similar for the Namadicus bones.

Meaning if all of this is true, Namadicus not only beats the Paraceratherium in shoulder height, but achieved this staggering size NOT by being really elongated (like the Para), but was just plain HUGE.

To make things slightly more interesting still, the Palaeoloxodons weren't even mammoths- they're believed to be the ancestors of the African elephant (descended from the Asian ones).

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grisador In reply to Harry-the-Fox [2016-04-27 21:06:36 +0000 UTC]

So the Palaeoloxolodon is the amphoceilas of mammalian Titan world
Then it's true; elephants are truly the rulers of mammals by both size and comparable intelligence !!
Poor Paraceratherium ! Nobody will remember them !!



So; wait. Palaeoxolodons (sounds like Paladin !) are likely to be advanced versions of primitive elephants ? Wow; guess nobody should underestimate an elephant !

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Harry-the-Fox In reply to grisador [2016-04-28 07:08:07 +0000 UTC]

Better still- Palaeoloxodons are technically MODERN elephants!
(it is believed they descended from Asian Elephants, and their name actually means "prehistoric African Elephant"- as they are (apparently) the ancestors of the modern day Loxodonta.
In other words, one of the Palaeoloxodon sub-species that migrated to Africa might be the "missing link" between Asian and African elephants (though not Namadicus obviously-  it lived in a completely different part of the world).

And yeah, a 5m+ tall elephant is basically larger than most big sauropods (except titanosaurs- they're still far bigger), and approaching the size of the "Oliphants" from Lord of the Rings.
To give an even more frightening idea of how big it is- its ankles are likely wider than an overweight man's waist.

As for the Paraceratheriums- I reckon they'll hold a pretty substantial place, when you consider WHAT exactly it is.
An animal that were it not for Palaeoloxodon, would be the largest ever land mammal by a HUGE margin, dwarfing the second largest by quite a lot... and it's a rhino.

For me, that's like learning that a prehistoric mammalian predator grew much larger than any modern bear, and was related to wolverines (for the record, no such animal is known to exist- though prehistoric wolverine species did grow to insane sizes- like the size of a small lion, or maybe a small bear)

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grisador In reply to Harry-the-Fox [2016-10-07 13:37:03 +0000 UTC]

Understood

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mark0731 [2016-03-11 20:46:32 +0000 UTC]

Hidden by Commenter

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Harry-the-Fox In reply to mark0731 [2016-03-11 22:32:27 +0000 UTC]

This one is more accurate the skeletal reconstructions, the other was in my "approximate as much as I can" practice days.
The belly I thought about for a while and this is slightly trimmer than other depictions, is still pretty close to accurate, as they tend to taper up significantly approaching the legs (that said, the vast majority of belly protrusion is from the sides- I didn't quite figure out how to get the light and shadows right to emphasize this)

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mark0731 In reply to Harry-the-Fox [2016-03-12 11:08:09 +0000 UTC]

Hidden by Commenter

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Harry-the-Fox In reply to mark0731 [2016-03-13 04:14:39 +0000 UTC]

Yikes- I'm on it.
And please ask!

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mark0731 In reply to Harry-the-Fox [2016-03-13 10:55:50 +0000 UTC]

Hidden by Commenter

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Harry-the-Fox In reply to mark0731 [2016-03-13 11:34:27 +0000 UTC]

To recap:

1-
This version is far more accurate and scaled to more specific, multiple measurements, so any discrepancies are due to errors in my old (draft) version, where the body hugged the skeletal frame less precisely and was scaled more loosely.
For this version, I matched the muscular/skeletal proportions to fit correctly around the skeleton (using modern rhinos as a reference for soft-tissue-to-bone-attachment and relative proportions of applicable bodyparts).
As a result, I trimmed away any bulk that shouldn't be there from the old version (or wouldn't likely be there)- particularly around the spinal area, shoulder, and especially around the legs.
I also double checked proportions by repeatedly setting a scale to the human (1.8 from above the black soles of the shoes to slightly below the top of the hair) and checked lengths of the skull, neck and shoulder height to ensure they all matched 1.3m, 2.5m and 4.8m respectively along with 1.8m for the human (thus ensure measurement errors are far more unlikely- or at least, consistently scaled to the person each time).

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PCAwesomeness [2016-02-26 00:15:52 +0000 UTC]

Nice!

And oh, I could see how you feel...

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Harry-the-Fox In reply to PCAwesomeness [2016-02-26 06:47:51 +0000 UTC]

Cheers, I really appreciate it!

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PCAwesomeness In reply to Harry-the-Fox [2016-02-26 13:10:19 +0000 UTC]

You're welcome.

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