Entelodont
Encyclopedia
Entelodonts, sometimes nicknamed hell pigs or terminator pigs, is an extinct family
Family (biology)
In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 of pig-like omnivores endemic to forests and plains of North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

, Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, and Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

 from the middle Eocene
Eocene
The Eocene Epoch, lasting from about 56 to 34 million years ago , is a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the Cenozoic Era. The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Palaeocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the...

 to early Miocene
Miocene
The Miocene is a geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about . The Miocene was named by Sir Charles Lyell. Its name comes from the Greek words and and means "less recent" because it has 18% fewer modern sea invertebrates than the Pliocene. The Miocene follows the Oligocene...

 epochs (37.2—16.3 mya), existing for approximately .

Taxonomy

Entelodontidae was named by Richard Lydekker
Richard Lydekker
Richard Lydekker was an English naturalist, geologist and writer of numerous books on natural history.-Biography:...

 and assigned to Nonruminantia by Gregory
William King Gregory
William King Gregory was an American zoologist, renowned as a primatologist, paleontologist, and functional and comparative morphologist. He was an expert on mammalian dentition, and a leading contributor to theories of evolution...

 (1910). Then assigned to Artiodactyla by Lucas et al. (1998); and to Entelodontoidea by Carroll (1988) and Boisserie et al. (2005). While entelodonts have long been classified as members of the Suina
Suina
The suborder Suina are lineage of mammals that today includes the families Suidae and Tayassuidae and their fossil kin.- Classification :The suborder Suina includes Suidae and Tayassuidae...

, Spaulding et al. have found them to be closer to whale
Whale
Whale is the common name for various marine mammals of the order Cetacea. The term whale sometimes refers to all cetaceans, but more often it excludes dolphins and porpoises, which belong to suborder Odontoceti . This suborder also includes the sperm whale, killer whale, pilot whale, and beluga...

s and hippo
Hippo
A hippo or hippopotamus is either of two species of large African mammal which live mainly in and near water:* Hippopotamus* Pygmy HippopotamusHippo may also refer to:-Given names:...

s than to pig
Pig
A pig is any of the animals in the genus Sus, within the Suidae family of even-toed ungulates. Pigs include the domestic pig, its ancestor the wild boar, and several other wild relatives...

s.

Morphology

Entelodonts are an extinct group of rather pig-like omnivorous mammal
Mammal
Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...

s with bulky bodies but short, slender legs, and long muzzles. The largest were the North American Daeodon shoshonensis, the Entelodon
Entelodon
Entelodon , is a genus of Entelodontidae endemic to Europe, Eurasia, Asia from the early Eocene through Oligocene living 37.2—28.4 mya, existing approximately ....

 and the Eurasian Paraentelodon
Paraentelodon
Paraentelodon is an extinct entelodont from the Late Oligocene of Eurasia.It was very similar in size and form to the giant entelodont, Daeodon, of early Miocene North America. Some researchers suggest that it was either ancestral to, or shared an ancestor with Daeodon...

 intermedium, standing up to 2.1 metres (6.9 ft) tall at-shoulder, with brains the size of an orange.

Body mass

A single specimen was recorded by M. Mendoza, C. M. Janis, and P. Palmqvist for body mass and was estimated to have a weight of 421 kg (928.1 lb).

Dentition and Anatomy

Entelodonts had a full set of teeth, including large canines, heavy incisor
Incisor
Incisors are the first kind of tooth in heterodont mammals. They are located in the premaxilla above and mandible below.-Function:...

s, and relatively simple, yet powerful, molars
Molar (tooth)
Molars are the rearmost and most complicated kind of tooth in most mammals. In many mammals they grind food; hence the Latin name mola, "millstone"....

. These features suggest an omnivorous diet, similar to that of modern pigs. Like many other artiodactyls, they had cloven hooves
Cloven hoof
A cloven hoof is a hoof split into two toes. This is found on members of the mammalian order Artiodactyla. Examples of mammals that possess this type of hoof are deer and sheep. In folklore and popular culture, a cloven hoof has long been associated with the Devil.The two digits of cloven hoofed...

, with two toes touching the ground, and the remaining two being vestigial.

The most distinguishing characteristic of the animals, however, would have been the heavy, bony lumps on either side of their heads which are similar to a warthog
Warthog
The Warthog or Common Warthog is a wild member of the pig family that lives in grassland, savanna, and woodland in Sub-Saharan Africa. In the past it was commonly treated as a subspecies of P...

's. Some of these may be have been attachment points for powerful jaw muscles, but some were larger in males, suggesting that they may also have had a role in competition for mates.

Lifestyle

Entelodonts lived in the forests and plains where they were the apex predators of North America's Early Miocene and Oligocene, consuming carrion and live animals and rounding off their diet with plants and tubers. They would have hunted large animals, like the cow-sized artiodactyl Eporeodon major
Eporeodon
Eporeodon is an extinct genus of oreodont belonging to the subfamily Eporeodontidae during the Oligocene epoch existing for approximately ....

 and the sheep-sized cameloid Poebrotherium wilsoni
Poebrotherium
Poebrotherium is an extinct genus of terrestrial herbivore the family Camelidae, endemic to North America from the Eocene through Oligocene 38—30.8 mya, existing for approximately .-Discovery and history:...

, dispatching them with a blow from their jaws. Some fossil remains of these other animals have been found with the bite marks of entelodonts on them. Like modern day pigs, they were omnivores, eating both meat and plants, but their adaptations show a bias towards live prey and carrion. They were most likely opportunists, mainly eating live animals, but not sneering at carrion and roots and tubers in times of drought. Some entelodonts even exhibited cacheing behavior, as an Archaeotherium
Archaeotherium
Archaeotherium is an extinct artiodactyl genus of the family Entelodontidae, endemic to North America during the Oligocene epoch , existing for approximately . Archaeotherium was about 1.2m tall at the shoulder and around 2m long and weighing around 270kg.It was a relative of javelinas and pigs...

s cache has been discovered, made up of the remains of several early camels.

In popular culture

Entelodonts appear in the third episode of the popular BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 documentary Walking with Beasts
Walking with Beasts
Walking with Beasts is a 2001 six-part television documentary miniseries, produced by the BBC in the United Kingdom, narrated by Kenneth Branagh. In North America it has been retitled Walking with Prehistoric Beasts, and the original Discovery Channel broadcast was narrated by Stockard Channing...

, where in the program, the narrator always refers to the creatures as "Entelodonts," rather than a more specific genus, such as Entelodon
Entelodon
Entelodon , is a genus of Entelodontidae endemic to Europe, Eurasia, Asia from the early Eocene through Oligocene living 37.2—28.4 mya, existing approximately ....

 or Archaeotherium
Archaeotherium
Archaeotherium is an extinct artiodactyl genus of the family Entelodontidae, endemic to North America during the Oligocene epoch , existing for approximately . Archaeotherium was about 1.2m tall at the shoulder and around 2m long and weighing around 270kg.It was a relative of javelinas and pigs...

. The same creatures appear in another BBC production the 2001 remake
The Lost World (2001 film)
The Lost World is a 2001 adaptation of the novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, directed by Stuart Orme and adapted by Adrian Hodges. It was filmed at various locations on the West Coast of New Zealand. The film was produced by the BBC and broadcast on BBC1 in the United Kingdom and A&E in the United...

 of The Lost World
The Lost World (Arthur Conan Doyle)
The Lost World is a novel released in 1912 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle concerning an expedition to a plateau in the Amazon basin of South America where prehistoric animals still survive. It was originally published serially in the popular Strand Magazine during the months of April 1912-November 1912...

.
Entelodonts were also the main focus of Episode 4 of National Geographic Channel
National Geographic Channel
National Geographic Channel, also commercially abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo, is a subscription television channel that airs non-fiction television programs produced by the National Geographic Society. Like History and the Discovery Channel, the channel features documentaries with factual...

s show Prehistoric Predators
Prehistoric Predators
Prehistoric Predators was a National Geographic program that was based on different predators that lived in our past e.g.: Smilodon, Megalodon etc. It was featured on Nat Geo at 2007....

 in an episode titled Killer Pig. The episode featured Entelodon (rather than the indigenous Archaeotherium) as being the top predator of the American Badlands
Badlands
A badlands is a type of dry terrain where softer sedimentary rocks and clay-rich soils have been extensively eroded by wind and water. It can resemble malpaís, a terrain of volcanic rock. Canyons, ravines, gullies, hoodoos and other such geological forms are common in badlands. They are often...

, and how it evolved into the even larger Daeodon (aka "Dinohyus").

External links

  • http://www.abc.net.au/beasts/factfiles/factfiles/entelodont.htm Video, images & sound
  • http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/u?/geoscience,34 Entelodont Skeleton
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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