Samotherium boissieri was a giraffid that lived from the mid-Miocene to early Pliocene, about 12-5 million years ago, ranging across what is now Southeastern Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.
Standing 2.3m tall at the shoulder (~7'6"), and with a total height of around 3-3.5m (9'10"-11'6"), it had long pointed ossicones and a neck that was halfway in both length and bone anatomy between those of its modern relatives the okapi and giraffe.
(But it wasn't actually a direct ancestor of modern giraffes, instead being an offshoot of the okapi lineage and most closely related to sivatheres.)
The shape of its snout and microwear on its teeth suggest that it was a seasonal mixed feeder, varying its diet between grazing and browsing at different times of year.
It would have also lived alongside another slightly larger species in the same genus, Samotherium major ā but the two appear to have been ecologically partitioned, avoiding direct competition by each preferring slightly different habitats and diets. S. boissieri inhabited more open grasslands, while S. major lived in mixed woodland-grassland and was more of a grazing specialist.
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References:
Al Riaydh, Mohammed H., et al. "Taxonomic and biogeographic implications of Late Miocene-Pliocene Samotherium (Giraffidae) from As-Sahabi, Libya: morphometric and machine learning approaches." Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology (2026): e2638390. https://doi.org/10.1080/02724634.2026.2638390
Danowitz, Melinda, Rebecca Domalski, and Nikos Solounias. "The cervical anatomy of Samotherium, an intermediate-necked giraffid." Royal Society Open Science 2.11 (2015): 150521. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.150521
Marra, Antonella Cinzia. "Samotherium boissieri from the Late Miocene of Southern Italy." Life 15.6 (2025): 911. https://doi.org/10.3390/life15060911
Merceron, Gildas, Marc Colyn, and Denis Geraads. "Browsing and non-browsing extant and extinct giraffids: evidence from dental microwear textural analysis." Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 505 (2018): 128-139. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2018.05.036
RĆos, MarĆa, Israel M. SĆ”nchez, and Jorge Morales. "A new giraffid (Mammalia, Ruminantia, Pecora) from the late Miocene of Spain, and the evolution of the sivathere-samothere lineage." PLoS One 12.11 (2017): e0185378. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185378
Solounias, Nikos, Mark Teaford, and Alan Walker. "Interpreting the diet of extinct ruminants: the case of a non-browsing giraffid." Paleobiology 14.3 (1988): 287-300. https://doi.org/10.1017/S009483730001201X
Solounias, Nikos, and Sonja MC Moelleken. "Dietary adaptation of some extinct ruminants determined by premaxillary shape." Journal of Mammalogy 74.4 (1993): 1059-1971. https://doi.org/10.2307/1382445
Wikipedia contributors. āSamotheriumā Wikipedia, 17 May 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samotherium
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Sobre o animal esquisito, trata-se de um Samotherium feito pelo paleoartista JĆŗlio Lacerda vulgo @paleoart que estĆ” aqui no Tumblr! caso tenha se interessado, recomendo fortemente checar as outras obras deles sobre bichos extintos.
I think I finished the giraffes. Iām not sure, I may tweak them a bit yet, but there wonāt be any major changes (unless I get my hands on any good references that will show me where I made mistakes).
Theyāre sort of to scale: sort of, because in most cases itās impossible to find good references, and, as I mentioned earlier, finding good info on sizes is also difficult. The best I could find for Bramatherium was: āsomewhat smaller than Sivatherium.ā, and for Shansitherium, it was āsmaller, with longer, more gracile* skull than Sivatherium.ā And Smatoherium was āabout the size of modern bull mooseā (or elk, if youāre in the UK), but it had ā1m long neckā, so Iām a bit more confident with Samotherium size.
Also to keep in mind: scrappy reference material: For Bohlinia, I literally had a piece of skull and the length of metetarsal, Palaotragus is also based only on a piece of skull, with modified Okapi skeleton for the rest of the body. The same with Giraffokeryx. Though in Palaeotragus case I also had the length of metatarsus to help with scaling. For Giraffokeryx the size is based on the skull length. At least I had a full skeletal reconstruction for Helladotherium, and with metatarsus length Iām quite confident, that one is accurate and to scale.
Shansitherium is based on several photos of its skeleton, but they were all distorted to some degree. I did my best to combine those, and get the proportions right, but thereās a possibility I made mistakes along the way.
Honestly, trying to find good references on extinct synapsids (whether mammalian or not), apart from the few āsuperstarsā is ridiculous. And even in cases of seemingly well known species, the lack of good references can be surprising.
That was supposed to be a fairly quick painting, but... it wasnāt. I also wasnāt sure how may extant giraffes to include here. Because some sources claim thereās only one, others that there are six, and others still that there are eight species. I gotĀ confused about which of those views to follow, so decided to stick with the traditional one species.
Iāll be adding this to me shop at some point, once Iām sure thereās no more tweaks to make.
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