Honanotherium
| Honanotherium Temporal range: Late Miocene
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| Mounted skeleton in Henan Geological Museum | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Artiodactyla |
| Family: | Giraffidae |
| Genus: | †Honanotherium Bohlin, 1927 |
| Species | |
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Honanotherium is a genus of extinct giraffid from the late Miocene of Henan Province, China, and East Azerbaijan Province, northwestern Iran.[2][1] It was closely related to Bohlinia and was once thought to be ancestral to the modern giraffe (genus Giraffa). The living animal would have resembled a modern giraffe, but was somewhat shorter, with more massive ossicones.
The first part of the generic name, honano refers to the Henan (Chinese: 河南; pinyin: Hénán) province of China, where the first specimens were recovered. The second part, therium, comes from the Greek, θηρίον which means "beast."
Paleobiology
[edit]
Like the modern-day giraffe, Honanotherium may have grazed on low-lying trees in the savannah environment, although its shorter neck shows that it probably fed on different plants than the extant giraffe.
References
[edit]- ^ a b Nikos Solounias and Melinda Danowitz (2016). "The Giraffidae of Maragheh and the identification of a new species of Honanotherium". Palaeobiodiversity and Palaeoenvironments. in press. doi:10.1007/s12549-016-0230-7.
- ^ Bohlin, B. 1927. Die Familie Giraffidae. Pal. Sinica, Ser. C, IV, Fasc. 1, various pages.
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