分类: 生物学 >> 动物学 提交时间: 2021-08-11 合作期刊: 《古脊椎动物学报》
摘要: A cuboid specimen collected from the Late Miocene stratum at Qingyang, Gansu, China is described here. The size of the Qingyang specimen is comparatively huge, even larger than the average size of Elasmotherium caucasicum collected from Nihewan, Hebei, China. The morphology of the Qingyang specimen is identical to that of other specimens of Elasmotheriini; thus, the Qingyang specimen belongs to a huge elasmothere, most probably Sinotherium. By comparison with extant rhino species, the complex of the main body and the apophysis exhibit functional significance. The angle between the frontal plate of the cuboid and the main axis of the apophysis can suggest the ecological conditions occupied by an elasmothere. From analysis of the morphology of the cuboid, Sinotherium and the more derived elasmotheres probably lived in forested or wooded environments, differing from the previous hypothesis of their paleoenvironment.