#bothriodon

[antiqueanimals]

Cynodictis and Bothriodon

Zdeněk Burian

[earthstory]

wightcoastfossils

A 33 million year old molar from the ancient Oligocene mammal Bothriodon,  lying amongst the shingle on the Island’s northwest coastline.

Around the size of a large pig, Bothriodon was a member of a bizarre group of mammals that thrived on the Island’s Oligocene coastal plain, the anthracotheres.  Ancestors of the modern hippopotamus, anthracotheres first appeared in the Late Eocene in Asia, surviving and thriving until their extinction  2 million years ago! Their fossils are widespread in Oligocene rocks across Europe, Asia and North America and seem to show a close association with ancient wetland environments.

On the Isle Of Wight our Early Oligocene Bouldnor Formation produces the fossils of two different types of anthracothere; the larger Bothriodon and the smaller dog-sized Elomeryx. Their teeth and bones frequently wash up in the shingle and can occasionally be found in-situ within the clays.

These animals probably shared an ecologically similar existence to their descendant the hippopotamus, wading and wallowing in the extensive lakes, ponds and marshlands of the Island’s ancient coastal plain. Their spoon-like incisor teeth perfectly adapted for feeding on the coastal plain’s abundant aquatic plants such as reeds, water lilies and leather ferns. This may in part explain their abundance here, their semi-aquatic lifestyle making carcasses more prone to preservation in the silty muds than the other members of the mammalian fauna.

[revelatorytruths]

THE RECENT FLOOD STAGE THE AGE OF ADVANCED MAMMALS This period was characterized by the further and rapid evolution of placental mammals, the more progressive forms of mammalian life developing during these times.