Rhinoceros Giants

[radman]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/vergano/2013/04/27/rhinoceros-prothero-fossil/2115519/

A different take on how these beasts may have looked.

[Balaur]

Interesting....

[stoneage]

   It just sounds like speculation to me.  Bakker had sauropods with trunks.  Not all big animals in hot climates today have big ears, Rhinos don't.

[CityRaptor]

Actually the idea of Sauropods with trunks did not come from Bakker. He did one single illustration about it, but the rest of his Sauropods have proper faces. It's Combs who did the trunks thing.

[SBell]

  It just sounds like speculation to me.  Bakker had sauropods with trunks.  Not all big animals in hot climates today have big ears, Rhinos don't.

It was an interesting line, that 'they had big ears like elephants' which would be highly unlikely to fossilize.

One issue I have with any of Prothero's books is that he rarely, if ever, has unique illustrations in them, instead getting permission to re-use existing images from other sources. Especially given the less familiar nature of this book for most readers, some up-to-date illustration could be helpful (of course, that costs much more, which would raise the book price, so it's a trade off).

[shauna_kei]

Kind of interesting seeing that picture while watching the Indricothere on Walking with Beasts on Netflix. I like the one on the show better.

[Gwangi]

It looks like they tried to give it an elephant head. Still looks like an interesting book though.

[wings]

It looks like they tried to give it an elephant head. Still looks like an interesting book though.

The author does give explanation to those "ears" (whether you're agreeing with him or not is another matter).

"...the size and shape of the ears... indrichothere were larger in body mass than any living elephant and almost certainly had problems of regulating their body heat at such large size. Elephants must do all they can to increase the surface area of their bodies to release as much excess heat as possible, which is why they have huge fan-like ears full of blood vessels that are essentially giant radiators. Given the huge size of indrichotheres, it seems likely that they too should have had elephant-like ears, or at least very large ears of some shape, much larger than they are drawn... we must look to elephant for a different model... soft tissue of the external ear almost never fossilizes (it is only known in mummified Ice Age mammoths, bison and woolly rhinos), the robust bones around the ear opening are much like those in some elephants and mastodons, suggesting that indrichotheres should be drawn with much larger ears..."

[Gwangi]

Makes sense, I can't argue with that logic. Still I wonder if they could have made larger ears, only more rhino-like in structure? Still wouldn't mind reading it though.

[Ultimatedinoking]

It looks like the legs are too skinny. Also which version of Paraceratherium  is the more modern, the long necked thin legged one, or the short necked heavily built one?  They both seem to pop up together.