(Ce) your chain.
A illustration of the Linxian Parasuretherium
At six meters tall and weighing up to 17 tons, the largest land mammal ever makes the current title holder, the African elephant, look small.
The elephant from the neighboring continent of Europe can measure around seven meters in length and reach 3.7 meters in height, with a typical weight of between 4 and 7 tons, but it is nothing special next to the Paraceratherium.
The prehistoric giant, a type of rhino without a horn (it is, in fact, a distant relative of the modern rhino), had a long neck that resembles that of a giraffe. It lived during the Oligocene, between 34 and 23 million years ago, and its fossils mainly in Asia, in regions that today correspond to China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Pakistan.
Estimates point to a body measuring around 7.4 meters in length and a height at the shoulder of 4.8 meters, according to . The weight may have been around 17 tons — almost five times more than the largest current rhino, the southern white rhino, which weighs around 3.6 tons.
The most curious thing is to think about how the animal “couldn’t hurt a fly”: its diet was based on plants, leaves and small bushes. He probably spent most of the day eating, quietly — and defecating feces the size of a football.
O Paraceratherium it was found quite a long time ago (in 1846) in Pakistan, but was not correctly identified until 1907 or 1908, after Guy Ellock Pilgrim found more complete remains of the species. But in 2021, a new impetus to the study of this group came with the description of a new species, from fossils found in Tibet and dated 26.5 million years ago.
Among the finds, a completely preserved skull stood out, measuring more than one meter in length: a very rare record for an animal of this scale.
Despite its fame, the status of the largest land mammal ever is not consensual. The incompleteness of the fossil record makes it difficult to accurately determine the maximum size of these giant rhinos. Some researchers argue that the straight-tusked elephant may have been even larger, with estimates reaching 22 tons, although based on limited evidence; analyzes of more complete bones point to 13 to 15 tons. Another candidate is Borson’s mastodon, with estimates weighing between 15 and 16 tons.
Despite everything, none of these colossi come close to the largest animal that has ever walked the Earth: the dinosaur, measuring around 37 meters long and weighing the equivalent of ten African elephants.
And then there is the other side of the coin: the smallest “cutes” in the world.
