Page 21 - Prehistoric Animals

Are-Sinoy-Thear-Eum

Arsinoitherium

Arsinoitherium is an extinct genus, that contains two notable species; A. zitteli and A. giganteum.
Discovered by H. L. Beadnell, in the Fayum Depression of Egypt in 1901, A. zitteli, stands nearly 6ft tall
and 11ft long, while A. giganteum, discovered in the Ethiopian highlands of Chilga in 2003, was given
the name giganteum due to its size; about 25 to 30 percent larger than, A. Zitteli. Other Arsinoitherium
fossil fragments have been found across Africa, in south-eastern Europe, in Romania and in Turkey.
However, the Fayum Oasis is the only site where a complete fossilised skeleton of an Arsinoitheri-
um was ever recovered.

Arsinoitherium were massive, slow-moving herbivores that lived in North Africa in
Late Eocene and the Early Oligocene periods about 30 to 56 million years ago. Their most noticeable
features being a pair of enormous horns protruding from their scull just behind their snout and a second
pair of tiny knob-like horns over the eyes. Although they resembled the Rhinoceros, due to their leg
structure and horns they are believed to be more closely related to the Elephant.

Arsinoitherium lived at a time when its environment was a mixture of swampy marshlands and
heavily forested areas; the vast grasslands that Africa was to become noted for had not yet appeared.
This would have made Arsinoitherium a heavy vegetation browser, like shrubs, rather than a grass graz-
er. This is borne out by its teeth. It had over 40 lining its jaws. These were heavy chewing and crushing
teeth, typical of a heavy vegetation browser. It's this dependency on heavy vegetation that is thought to
have contributed to its disappearance in Africa. With its natural habitat disappearing, and being re-
placed only by grassland; this would have spelt disaster for an animal ill-equipped for grass grazing.