Paraceratherium The Largest Mammal on Earth after the Dinosaur Extinction

PARIS – Since its extinction dinosaur , mammals continued to develop. In the absence of their scaly counterparts, their numbers exploded, they diversified, and they got bigger – but how big?

We know that the blue whale is the largest mammal that ever existed – it is also the largest animal that ever lived – measuring about 30 meters (98 feet) and weighing up to 200 tons. But what about mammals that live on land?

As reported by IFL Science, Thursday (2/5/2024), currently, the African elephant is considered the largest land mammal (and animal) still living in the world.

At 7 meters (23 ft) long and 3.7 meters (12 ft) tall, these extant giants typically weighed 4 to 7 tons and also had the heaviest brains and noses of any land mammal.

Pretty impressive – but they’re no competitor to the largest land mammal ever.

That crown goes to the now extinct Paraceratherium – a huge, hornless rhinoceros with a long neck like a giraffe.

Found mostly in Asia, in China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Pakistan in the Early to Late Oligocene (34-23 million years ago), these giant rhinos dwarf the largest rhino we have today – the southern white rhino, which could reach the height of 4.2 meters (13.8 ft), 1.85 meters (6 ft) tall, and weighs 3.6 tonnes.

Paraceratherium, on the other hand, is estimated to have had a total length of 7.4 meters (24 ft) and a shoulder height of 4.8 meters (15.7 ft), making it the most massive mammal ever to have lived on land.

This prehistoric giant is also believed to have weighed around 17 tons – nearly five times the weight of any extant elephant – based on estimates from a partially reconstructed skeleton at the American Museum of Natural History.