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Anti-aristarchus [soylentnews.org] writes:

From China, where all the new science seems to be occuring, reported in Gizmodo [gizmodo.com].

Giant rhinos are among the largest mammals to have ever walked this great Earth, and a newly discovered species that lived in northwest China some 25 million years ago is revealing just how magnificent these creatures were.

Gigantism is a biological trait typically associated with dinosaurs, but natural selection has produced some fairly huge mammals as well. In fact, the largest animal of all time, the blue whale, is a mammal. In terms of large terrestrial mammals, Steppe mammoths were pretty big, as were giant ground sloths, but giant rhinos were likely the biggest.

Several genera of giant rhinos are known, among them Paraceratherium. These extinct hornless rhinos lived primarily in Asia, with fossils spread throughout China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and Pakistan. The evolutionary history of giant rhinos is a bit vague, however, and paleontologists have struggled to discern their exact proportions owing to an abundance of incomplete fossils. What is clear, however, is that these mammals were very large.

This group can now claim a new member, Paraceratherium linxiaense, as reported in a study published today in Communications Biology. Paleontologist Tao Deng, from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, led the research.

Size?

The evidence pointed to an entirely new species. Compared to other Paraceratherium, this animal featured a slender skull, a short nose trunk, a long neck, and a deeper nasal cavity. This giant rhino “had no horn,” Deng explained in an email. “Its small upper first incisors and deep nasal notch indicates a longer prehensile nose trunk, similar to that of the tapir,” while its large body size, as evidenced by its large 3.8-foot-long (1.14-meter) head, distinguishes it from other species of Paraceratherium, he added.

Extrapolating from the partial remains, Deng estimates a weight of 24 tons, “similar to the total weight of four largest individuals of the modern African elephant,” he said. P. linxiaense stood 16.4 feet (5 meters) at the shoulders, and its body measured 26.25 feet (8 meters) long.

Original Submission