#teleoceras

[paleonativeart]

Day 26: Teleoceras aepysoma

A short-legged rhinoceros takes an swim in the prehistoric river of Gray Fossil Site during the Early Pliocene.

[antediluvianechoes]

Teleoceras, Charles R. Knight, 1878

Teleoceras has a cold. His nose is gobbled up with mucous and a bitter taste coats the walls of his mouth. None of the grass tastes sweet. He sneezes and litters the reeds with a cloud of germs and snot particles. His eyes are puffy. The world looks as if it's in a haze. He blinks, tries to clear his vision, feels thick tears leak from the corners of his eyes. A cough shakes his body, brings up a wad of phlegm that he instinctively swallows down with a moan. If any predator were to stalk him, they would turn away in disgust.

[mesozoicmarket]

A section of fossilized skull of a Teleoceras proterum from the Love Site (Love Bone Bed) in Alachua County, Florida, United States. Teleoceras was a Miocene aged rhinocerotid with a small or absent horn from North America, distantly related to modern day rhinoceros genera from Africa and Asia. This specimen was collected prior to the University of Florida taking over the site.

[dropsofsciencenews]

The Story of Ancient Rhinos Carved in Their Teeth

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In Nebraska, there is a unique place called Ashfall Fossil Beds, where around 12 million years ago, a massive volcanic eruption—650 km³ of expelled material—covered a wetland in ash, trapping and fossilizing a large number of animals, including over 100 rhinos. Since its discovery in the 1970s, researchers have wondered why so many animals were found in a single location. Did they live in herds? Was it a seasonal gathering linked to a varied diet that encouraged movement? Or had they come together seeking refuge from the ash?

A recent study attempted to answer these questions by closely examining the fossilized teeth of one of those rhinos: Teleoceras major. This species, endemic to North America during the Clarendonian—part of the North American land mammal age—was a rhino with a single horn, a stocky body, and short legs. All Teleoceras species exhibited sexual dimorphism in their lower second incisors: females had smaller, rounded tusks, while males had larger, pointed ones, possibly used in fighting or displays to gain mating privileges.

The study focused on the remains of 13 adult individuals (8 ♀ and 5 ♂), specifically the M2 and M3 molars. From the tooth enamel, researchers extracted material to measure three stable isotopes: carbon (δ¹³C) to determine diet, oxygen (δ¹⁸O) to infer climate and water intake, and strontium (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr), which reflects local geology and helps detect potential geographic movement.

Results showed a diet based almost entirely on C3 plants, typical of humid, wooded environments, with no signs of C4 plant consumption. Oxygen values varied with seasonal water changes, but strontium values remained homogeneous, indicating constant use of the same territory, with no signs of migration from geologically distinct areas. More detailed analyses on serial samples confirmed this ecological stability.

T. major lived within a limited area of a few dozen km² and did not migrate regionally. It was sedentary and closely tied to aquatic environments, much like modern hippos. The lack of isotopic evidence for immigration supports the idea that all sampled individuals were local—likely part of a large herd—killed in the same catastrophic ashfall event.

See You Soon, and Good Science!

Source Pic by University of Nebraska State Museum

[hannahmcgill]

Corgi Rhinos

Lineart is free to color under Creative Commons CC-BY-NA 3.0. Tag me if you do it, I wanna see!

[img id] 

First image: Digital artwork of two miniature teleoceras rhinocerouses, but with corgi coloring. One rhino perches on a fancy leather chair with a plushie and pillows and a blankie. The other rhino is eating kibble from a bowl labeled 'Petunia'. There are chew toys on the ground, and umbrellas with rhino-shaped handles in the background, and a portrait of the two rhinos hanging on the wall nearby. Clearly the person who owns these rhinos enjoys them a lot! 

Second image: Same as first, but it’s the lines only so that interested parties may color it. [/img id]

[tsaagan]

Prehistoric Animals and Plants

by Josef Beneš illustrated by Zdeněk Burian 1979

Arsinoitherium zitteli (The first successful mammals)

Brontotherium platyceras (The first successful mammals)

Indricotherium parvum (The first successful mammals)

Merychippus primus (Mammals acquire their present form)

Teleoceras fossiger (Mammals acquire their present form)

[dread-doughnuts]

A near-complete skeleton of Teleoceras fossiger from the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Ontario. This species of rhinoceros was built similarly to a hippo and is thought to have been semi-aquatic like hippos, it also possessed a single nose horn. T. fossiger lived in North America from 10.3-4.9 million years ago.

[paleonativeart]

Day 19: Teleoceras major

A extinct genus of rhinocerotid, which is a barrel shaped body that lived in North America during the Miocene and Pliocene periods.