Elasmotherium gets a new look

[Ravonium]

This recently published paper suggests that the protuberance on the skull supported a blunt horn-like keratinous covering, instead of the large sharp horn depicted in most previous reconstructions: https://zmmu.msu.ru/rjt/articles/ther20_2_173-182.pdf

[Reuben03]

whatttt thats crazy!

[suspsy]

The notion that Elasmotherium had a short horn as opposed to a long one isn't new; it's been depicted like that by certain artists for years. Still, this is the first actual paper I've seen on it.

[GojiraGuy1954]

I think the depiction of the horn in that paper is very conservative. If we take into account this Black Rhinoceros skull;

And compare it to the actual animal;


Since keratin is constantly growing, I wouldn't rule out the old long-horned Elasmotherium just yet.

[Reuben03]

I think the depiction of the horn in that paper is very conservative. If we take into account this Black Rhinoceros skull;
And compare it to the actual animal;
Since keratin is constantly growing, I wouldn't rule out the old long-horned Elasmotherium just yet.

hmm.
very good point.

[Shonisaurus]

Honestly without having any scientific knowledge I was surprised that the elasmotherium had that oversized horn (although for the natural world nothing is impossible) I think that rhinoceros by its appearance is a fantastic Bayala creature.

On the other hand, that reaffirms my thesis that we will never know the true aspect of the vast majority of dinosaurs or prehistoric animals, if not all, except for a few extinct species with recent paleontological antiquity (such as the mammoth or the marsupial wolf or thylacine), so the interpretations of the various toy companies, including non-scientific dinosaurs such as JP / JW, Nanmu or W-Dragon to give several examples, should not be a reason for criticism, because we do not have any video camera or photographic camera to know how they really were, although science advances a lot, it will never be able to guess one hundred percent what those prehistoric animals were like even if all the bones were found and even a mummified animal like Dakota or a fairly well preserved skeleton like the borealopelta was found, so that everything is speculation and the different toy companies only apply their knowledge for the amusement of the collectors. ionists and especially children. In the remains of dinosaurs and in this case of prehistoric mammals, everything is purely speculative.

[stargatedalek]

This makes an awful lot of sense.

Modern rhinoceros barely have any indication on their skulls for where their horns are, it isn't that this is a larger version of that, it's a completely different structure. It's also hollow and connected to the nasals, which the paper suggests may have been for clearing particulates from the air. A silly assertion to be frank, but it was probably used for warming the air as many other arctic mammals do.

It also matches the cave art of a previously unidentified rhinoceros with a small horn or lump. And the extra long legs of the art also match Elasmotherium.

[Sim]

I don't know much about Elasmotherium, but looking on its Wikipedia page, I see there are many species of it, I wonder if its possible different species had different horn shapes?  Also, all the reconstructions I've seen of it show it as short-legged.  Additionally, there's cave art that's thought to be of Elasmotherium which shows an animal with a single long horn.

[Duna]

As Sim says and read in Everythingdinosaur blog: https://blog.everythingdinosaur.co.uk/blog/_archives/2018/11/23

The Rouffignac limestone caves (Grotte de Rouffignac), are located in the Dordogne (south-western France) and this location was given UNESCO World Heritage Site status in 1979.  The cave walls depict more than 250 drawings attributed to the Magdalenian culture of the Late Pleistocene.  Many different types of animal are depicted with Woolly Mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius), predominating but there are a number of cave paintings that show Woolly Rhinos (Coelodonta antiquitatis) and one image that illustrates a powerfully built rhinoceros with a single, very large nose horn that has been interpreted as representing Elasmotherium.



So in that cave there are some woolly rhinos and one "powerfully built" rhino with a single very large horn.  I'm not convinced by that article, sorry. And in rhinoceros, there is no sign of the size of the horn(s) related to the bony structure.

[suspsy]

Perhaps one of these days we'll get insanely lucky and a preserved Elasmotherium mummy with an intact horn will be uncovered in Siberia just like all those woolly mammoths and woolly rhinos and cave lions and cave bears that have turned up. Until then, we don't know one way or the other.

[Faelrin]

Yeah I hope we get lucky with finding one.

[bmathison1972]

It's not like cave drawings should be used to infer morphologic features. Might as well use your child's scribblings hanging on the fridge...

[SidB]

It's not like cave drawings should be used to infer morphologic features. Might as well use your child's scribblings hanging on the fridge...

Maybe not quite so useless - it's easy to assume that so-called primative people were necessarily unobservant (I'm not saying that you are assuming this), or even that the art is hopelessly stylized. Rather, if we can consider other possibilities, the evidence that they MAY present can be worth some consideration; even childish scribblings may tell us something of value.

[GojiraGuy1954]

It's not like cave drawings should be used to infer morphologic features. Might as well use your child's scribblings hanging on the fridge...

It's more like not trusting a still life made by a skilled artist to be inaccurate to the real thing because it's "just made of paint."

[stargatedalek]

It's not like cave drawings should be used to infer morphologic features. Might as well use your child's scribblings hanging on the fridge...

Cave drawings certainly don't highlight the features we would expect to see prominently on a scientific drawing let alone a skeletal of the animal, but that far from makes them useless. It just makes them incomplete and to some extent warranting a bit of interpretation.

IE; some of the potential Elasmotherium paintings having thin legs, the skeleton sure doesn't show them having thin legs, but these renditions are made from first hand sightings of the animals in person, not from tracing photographs in profile, and are often drawn relative to each other. Thin legs are depicted on very large animals to illustrate their height, and these are done very similarly to how contemporary mammoths are shown. Given Elasmotherium was about as large as mammoths, it follows depictions of it would use similar trends in illustrating this, while woolly rhinoceros are depicted with very short stocky legs.

[andrewsaurus rex]

I think cave art can be a very good guide to what animals looked like in life.  Though not great works of art, even children's drawings will highlight prominent features.  If Elasmotherium had had a stubby nose horn, I doubt cave drawings would illustrate a huge long one.....where would the notion even come from if it wasn't something that was seen in every day life.

And perhaps there's a sexual dimorphism, with female Elasmotherium having short stubby horns and males long ones.  Or like the white rhino, the other way around, with females having long, thinner horns and males having shorter but much thicker ones.