#moropus

little cenozoic guys

Result from the Agate Fossil Beds #paleostream! This early Miocene lagerstätte from Nebraska (USA) is a fantastic window into our understanding of the transition from forest communities to grassland biomes...

As such Agate features a very mixed community, ancient lineages like oreodonts were still thriving along newcomers like camels. And clades, like the horses, have grazers as well as browsers in their ranks. These herbivores have been found in some cases in large bonebeds...

preserving hundreds of specimen. Besides that we see early modern carnivores rising through the ranks of predators, but still: nothing could beat a fully grown Daeodon. The site today is a National Monument with museum that also houses a large collection of native american...

artifacts but back than these badlands hosted an oak savanna that became dryer over time. As such the deep, corkscrew burrows of Palaeocastor become very prominent at some point but it was still moist enough that you also find here Alligators and the...

largest Andrias (giant salamander) species we know. Much more could be said and shown here but I just leave you with the size chart by Discord member Gnath

Btw. as you can imagine the wonderful work of the Forgotten Bloodlines team was a huge inspiration and at point reference for this piece! Check out their work and the trailer for their upcoming documentary!

Moropus distans, a species of chalicothere from Miocene North America.

It was about 3 m. long and stood 2.4 m. tall at the shoulder. They are related to modern day horses, rhinos and tapirs.

Moropus (meaning "slow foot")

Moropus is an extinct genus of large perissodactyl ("odd-toed" ungulate) mammal in the chalicothere family. They were endemic to North America during the Miocene from ~20.4–13.6 Mya, existing for approximately 6.8 million years.  Moropus belonged to the schizotheriine subfamily of chalicotheres, and has the best fossil record of any member of this group; numbers of individuals, including complete skeletons, have been found. The closest extant relatives of Moropus are other perissodactyls:  horses, rhinos, and tapirs...