Daeodon
Daeodon | |
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A skull of Dinohyus hollandi at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Artiodactyla |
Family: | †Entelodontidae |
Genus: | †Daeodon Cope, 1878 |
Type species | |
†Daeodon shoshonensis Cope, 1878
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Species | |
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Synonyms | |
Daeodon is an
Another large member of this family, larger than Daeodon, is the Asian Paraentelodon, but it is known by very incomplete material.[1][2]
Taxonomy
The genus Daeodon was erected by the American anatomist and
Species
The type species of Daeodon is D. shohonensis, which is based on a fragment of a lower jaw from the
Description
Daeodon shoshonensis is the largest-known
Paleoecology
Habitat
Daeodon had a wide range in North America, with many fossils found in Agate Fossil Beds, representing an environment in a transition period between dense forests and expansive prairie, likely a major cause of their extinction in the early Miocene.[16] It adapted to the grassland with a more cursorial body plan than more basal entelodonts like Archaeotherium, losing their dewclaws entirely, proximally fused metacarpals, and similar shoulder musculature to bison.[15][17]
The Agate Springs bonebed was a floodplain environment with wet and dry seasons. Daeodon shared this landscape with small gazelle-like camels
Diet
Daeodon was omnivorous like all other entelodonts. Enamel patterns suggest eating of nuts, roots, and vines, as well as meat and bones. The superficial similarity to peccaries, hippos, and bears implies a wide range in terms of what plants Daeodon may have been eating. The dry seasons of North America at the time could get very harsh, so they may have supplemented their water intake by eating grape vines. The extent of its carnivory is debated, but tooth wear suggests they specialized in crushing bone and ripping meat, and bite marks on chalicothere bones suggest they either hunted or scavenged large herbivores. Foss (2001) argues its head was far too heavy to be effective in taking down large prey so it must have relied exclusively on scavenging, but its bison-like adaptations for running, the stereoscopic vision characteristic of predators, and evidence of predation in entelodonts calls this interpretation into question.[19] The uncertainty of their diets suggests they were likely opportunistic omnivores similar to bears, eating whatever they needed depending on the circumstance.[20]
Behavior
Entelodonts partook in intraspecific face biting, known from tooth marks on their skulls. Males would fight for dominance, possibly using their mandibular tubercles as protection in addition to their function as muscle attachments.[20] Sexual dimorphism of the jugal protections exist in Archaeotherium, and with a smaller Daeodon sample size, such dimorphism can't be ruled out for Daeodon. If dimorphic, the function of the expanded jugals was likely for display, supporting large preorbital glands similar to those forest hogs possessed for chemical communication.
References
- ^ ISBN 9780801887352.
- ^ L. K. Gabunia (1964). Бернарская фауна олигоценовых позвоночных (The Benarskaya Fauna of Oligocene Vertebrates). Metsniereba, Tbilisi. pp. 109–133. Retrieved 2020-09-26.
- ^ Cope, E. D. (1878). "On some characters of the Miocene fauna of Oregon". Paleontological Bulletin. 30: 1–16.
- ^ Sinclair, W. J. (1905). "New and imperfectly known rodents and ungulates from the John Day Series". Bull. Dept. Geology, Univ. California. 4: 132–134.
- ^ S2CID 247000277.
- ^ a b c d e f g Lucas, S.G.; Emry, R.J.; Foss, S.E. (1998). "Taxonomy and distribution of Daeodon, an Oligocene-Miocene entelodont (Mammalia: Artiodactyla) from North America". Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. 111 (2): 425–435.
- ^ Foss, S. E.; Fremd, T. J. (2001). "Biostratigraphy of the Entelodontidae (Mammalia: Artiodactyla) from the John Day Basin, Oregon". PaleoBios. 21: 53.
- ISBN 978-0874740011.
- ^ Allen, G. M. (1926). "Fossil mammals from South Carolina". Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. 67: 447–467.
- JSTOR 1374141.
- ^ Simpon, G. G. (1945). "The principles of classification and a classification of mammals". Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. 85: 1–350.
- PMID 17729479.
- PMID 17835750.
- ^ Foss, S. E.; Fremd, T. (1998). "A survey of the species of Entelodonts (Mammalia, Artiodactyla) of the John Day Basin, Oregon". Dakoterra. 5: 63–72.
- ^ ISBN 9780521355193.
- ^ Agate Fossil Beds National Monument National Park Service. 2009
- ^ Andrew Brant Clifford (May 2010). Evolution and Mechanics of Unguligrady in Artiodactyls (PhD thesis). Brown University.
- ^ "Mammal Fossils - Agate Fossil Beds National Monument (U.S. National Park Service)". www.nps.gov. Retrieved 2018-10-28.
- JSTOR 4524027.
- ^ a b Foss, S. E., 2001, Systematics and paleobiology of the Entelodontidae (Mammalia, Artiodactyla) [Ph.D. dissertation]: Dekalb, Northern Illinois University