Daeodon

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Daeodon
Fossil range: Early Miocene

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Artiodactyla
Family:	†Entelodontidae
Genus:	†Daeodon Cope, 1879

Species

†D. shoshonensis (type)
Cope, 1879

Synonyms

Ammodon Marsh, 1893
Dinochoerus Peterson, 1905
Dinohyus Peterson, 1906

Daeodon (formerly Dinohyus, "terrible hog") is a genus of prehistoric mammal, a member of the Entelodont family, lived 20-18 million years ago in North America.

The 3 m (10 ft) long animal looked like a giant, monstrous pig, possessing huge jaws with deadly tusks. It was a huge, bone-crushing scavenger and predator, found at Agate Springs Quarry. ^[1] It had long skull bones under its eyes and bony protrusions on the lower jaw, not dissimilar to the 'warts' of the warthog, which may have supported jaw muscles. The well-known genus Dinohyus ("terrible pig") is now known to have belonged to this genus.^[2] Since Daeodon is the earlier name, it has priority.

[edit] References

^ Prothero, Donald R. (2005). "After the dinosaurs. The age of mammals".
^ Lucas, S.G., Emry, R.J., and Foss, S.E. (1997). "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.