Rhynchotherium: The Four Tusk Prehistoric "Elephant"
Jealousy!
This amazing skull is a nearly complete, original specimen of #Rhynchotherium, “snout beast,” found in Arizona’s Greenlee County, but on display at the Las Vegas Natural History Museum. I think it is LVNHM 871.
Its closest cousin is #Gomphotherium (we sell an amazing Scaled Skull of Gomphotherium, the “nail beast”). #Gomphotheres are a Family of #proboscideans that have four tusks. You can see the two huge straight tusks up top, then the smaller tusks coming out of the lower jaw. Elephant tusks are incisors, not canines, (and elephants lack canines, so there is that, too :-)). These teeth are used to dig, spar, and keep themselves safe from animals that threaten them or make them angry.
Found all over the Southwest, they are never found this pretty! We have them from our 111 Ranch site and believe they are R. falonceri, which Osborn named in 1823 and, thanks to a typical 1800s taxonomic faux paux, the genotype of Rhynchotherium turns out to belong to Gomphotherium, which would cause problems because the species defining the genus received a name change. A petition to the ICZN was accepted and R. tlascalae became a Gomphotherium and R. falconeri became the new genotype of Rhynchotherium. Hooray for common sense!
These wondrous creatures were among the largest creatures of their day, coming in at 8+’ tall and 4+ tons. They had a trunk and, if one were to see them in the wild, I suspect it wouldn’t be immediatley obvious that this was something different from the #elephants we are used to seeing today.
They lived alongside various kinds of stabby #felids, #bears of all sorts, and a variety of now-extinct carnivores. Like #pachyderms today, once they hit adult size I doubt they worried about much, other than where is the next stack o’ food coming from :-). They may have lived in herds and were perhaps matriarchical.
FWIW we also have #Stegomastodon from the 111 Ranch locality. Though there has been a suggestion #Cuvierornis is present, tis highly doubted by us :-). Always a delight to excavate fossil proboscideans in today’s Arizona deserts.
#FossilCrates