#behemotops

[bobnichollsart]

My 25 years of palaeoart chronology…

A few more of my vignettes (rendered in 2021) for the book, called SEA MAMMALS, by Annalisa Berta. Here are Behemotops and Odobenocetops – two amazing weirdos.

[extinctworld-ua]

Behemotops

Behemotops — вимерлий рід травоїдних морських ссавців. Він жив з раннього олігоцену (рупеля) до пізнього олігоцену (33,9—23 млн років). Це найпримітивніший відомий десмостилій, який, як вважають, є близьким до предків усіх інших десмостиліїв. Родова назва походить від імені біблійного чудовиська Бегемот, Лінней та інші вважають його бегемотом.

Повний текст на сайті "Вимерлий світ":

https://extinctworld.in.ua/behemotops/

[palaeopedia]

The hippopotamus-looking, Behemotops (1986)

Phylum : Chordata Class : Mammalia Order : Desmostylia Family : Desmostylidae Genus : Behemotops Species : B. proteus, B. katsuiei

Oligocene (33 - 10 Ma)

4 m long (size)

North America and Japan (map)

Behemotops is an extinct genus of herbivorous marine mammal of the family Desmostylidae living from the Rupelian stage of the Early Oligocene subepoch through the Late Oligocene subepoch (33.9 mya—23 Mya) and in existence for approximately 10.9 million years.

Behemotops is Greek for "hippopotamus-looking" and was discovered on the northern Oregon coast in the early 1970s by fossil collector Douglas Emlong, and described by Daryl Domning, Clayton E. Ray and Malcolm C. McKenna in 1986. Fossils representing this genus have been found in Oregon, Washington and west to Hokkaidō.

Behemotops had more elephant-like tooth and jaw features than other known desmostylians from later periods. It had cusped molars that more resembled those of mastodons or other land ungulates than those of later Desmostylus, which exhibited odd "bound-pillar" shaped molars which may have evolved in response to the grit from a diet of sea-grass. Discovery of Behemotops helped place desmostylians as more closely related to proboscideans than sirenians, although relationships of this group are still poorly resolved.