Harry-the-Fox on DeviantArthttps://www.deviantart.com/harry-the-fox/art/Paraceratherium-Enhanced-Size-Comparison-590197266Harry-the-Fox

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Paraceratherium- Enhanced Size Comparison

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Description

My Tribute. For Tim, the kindest man I ever met, who once told me Paraceratherium was his favorite childhood animal.  Rest in Peace my friend.
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UPDATE 3: Now in very high detail, with corrected anatomy drawing from the Black Rhino's soft tissue.
UPDATE 2: improved background and details.
UPDATE: included a vertical ruler into the background measuring in meters and 10cm intervals.


Animal Info:
Paraceratherium lived during the Oligocene period. It was one of the largest land mammals to have lived, estimated to grow over 8 meters long, reach a shoulder height of 4.8 meters tall (standing taller than many large dinosaurs), and weighing up to 17 tonnes. The only land animals to clearly exceed its size are large sauropods, and possibly the ancient elephant Palaeoloxodon Namadicus.
This animal is known from near-complete remains- mainly missing a couple of vertebrae in its elongated neck. Scientists predict the neck would be between 2 to 2.5 meters long (the latter depicted here- my reasons explained below*).
Complete skull specimens are up to 1.3 meters long (for comparison, a Tyrannosaurus Rex's skull reaches up to 1.5 meters long)!
The body is large, heavy and very wide, while its legs are elongated and thin for such a large animal. With an elongated neck, many predict it browsed high branches in the trees, similar to modern giraffes.
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Artwork design and considerations:
This is a massive overhaul of my previous attempt at Paraceratherium (which was too thickly built).  Like last time, the entire animal has been painted by hand in Photoshop.
Using an array of photographs and diagrams as references to gauge skeletal accuracy, and photographs of live rhinoceroses for muscular and skin anatomy (and texture). Toes, tail, ears, eyes and the general manner the body fits together have also been inferred from rhinos (but the thick wrinkly skin and muscle connecting the chest to the throat has not been included, due to significant differences in skeletal anatomy).

*In considering the length of the neck, I erred to the maximum estimated length. I don't normally do this, but Paraceratherium presents a solid basis for it. With extremely long legs, this animal would need an extremely long neck to be able to reach the ground and drink with minimal  need to bend its legs, and also to exert minimal energy in browsing. Having a longer-reaching neck and snout is a form that applies to almost every ungulate that has ever lived (even Giraffes, which need to splay their legs to balance blood flow while lowering its head benefits from this). Grazing dinosaurs too conformed to the "neck" rule at least. The only megaherbivores that seem to contradict this 'rule' are elephants, as their long trunks fulfill this role instead.
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The length of the head greatly exceeds the length of the skull. Aside from factoring in the consideration above (*) this is a true anatomical feature for modern rhinos, giraffes and many other ungulates whose snout is mostly solid muscle extending far beyond the actual skull (a psuedo trunk of sorts, whose strength and flexibility helps the animal to rip off leaves, branches, grass etc that incisors would struggle to wrap around).
Image size
5497x4138px 5.51 MB
© 2016 - 2024 Harry-the-Fox
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Libra1010's avatar

Holy Smokes, an elephant is Big but this creature is Big and Tall!