READ ME: I'M NEW! With six years of phd work on theropod dinosaurs behind him, Darren Naish mostly spends long, happy hours in the library, hunched over his laptop. But he gets out sometimes, and picks up litter and pursues exotic lizards across the British countryside, aiming all the while to publish his technical work on obscure Cretaceous dinosaurs. He also messes around with pterosaurs, swimming giraffes, British big cats and stuff like that. He has given up on the stupid idea of being a dedicated academic and ekes out a living as a technical consultant, editor and author. He can be contacted intermittently at eotyrannus (at) gmail dot com. For more biographical info go 
The skull of the immense Pleistocene rhino Elasmotherium sibiricum, with reconstructed horn, as displayed at the Natural History Museum in London. Relatively well known as fossil rhinos go, E. sibiricum is the largest and best known species of the diverse rhinocerotid clade Elasmotheriina. I have a post planned on elasmotheres, it's called 'Giant unicorn rhino and pals', but I don't know when I'll get round to posting it. I have rhinos on my mind at the moment: on Wednesday I'm attending Save the Rhino's Mayday event at the Zoological Society's meeting hall at Regent's Park.
Comments
2.8 meter, 476 kg hog shot with pistol in Alabama, USA by eleven-year-old boy
Posted by: Tegumai Bopsulai, FCD | May 28, 2007 9:21 AM
Darren, thanks for these daily pix. They give me a little something to nibble on between the main courses.
Tet Zoo #1, "dinosaur bird with hairballs" irresistably made me think about being awakened at 2 a.m. by unmentionable cat-noises downstairs. So as to flesh out this bizarre mental image, exactly how big is a dromaeosaur? When I go downstairs to clean up after him, do I need a paper towel, or a shovel?
Noni
Posted by: Noni Mausa | May 28, 2007 10:17 AM
A while ago, I learnt that the adjective pertaining to rhinoceroses is rhinocerotic... Well, I suppose they are rather horny.
Posted by: Richard Carter, FCD | May 28, 2007 3:03 PM
I notice the nostrils are separated because the premaxillae and the nasals meet. How unmammalian. (It's clearly secondary, though.)
Posted by: David Marjanović | May 28, 2007 5:02 PM
So how do they know the horn was shaped like that? Have preserved examples been found?
Posted by: N_C | May 29, 2007 5:39 AM
Good lady Amalthea, what a horn...but is it more probable than the massive, conical affair shown by most other reconstructions?
A horn from a permafrost deposit would help, but none have been found for the last 300 years or so; they must have been commoner in medieval times, for Ibn Fadlan (usually reliable) claimed the Volgar Bulgars used composite bows made from "unicorn horn". Ibn Fadlan visited the Volgar Bulgar state - a muslim outpost in the urals, isolated from the rest of the muslim world by the jewish Khazar empire - as a member of an embassy from the Abbasid Caliph, and can be considered an eyewitness.
Posted by: johannes | May 29, 2007 6:29 AM
At early reconstructions (for example, made by Flerov, Russian paleontologist and artist), horn of Elasmotherium looks short, wide and helmet-like, by the way.
Posted by: Pavel I. Volkov | May 29, 2007 2:25 PM
No Elasmotherium horn is known. If you look very carefully at the information panel in the photo, you might be able to see some discussion of the horn morphology in this taxon. It's been proposed that the animal had a low, boss-like mass, a tall slender horn, or a broad-based massive horn. There is, however, one cave painting, and it shows a gently curved horn that is more slender than the version reconstructed by (e.g.) Burian. I don't recall it being as slender as the horn reconstructed lifesize here however.
Posted by: Darren Naish | May 29, 2007 3:00 PM
I've seen so many paintings and pictures of reconstructions of Wooly Rhinos...its very nice to finally see what the skull itself looks like. Thank you.
One tiny question - do you think that Elasmotherium experienced anything like musth? I made a reference to such a thing in a fanfiction, and now I'm seriously curious about it.
have great days & be well.
Posted by: Anthony Docimo | May 29, 2007 8:41 PM
Anthony,
while Elasmotherium certainly had fur - it would not have been able to survive an inner eurasian winter otherwise - the term "Wooly Rhinoceros" is usually used as the common name for the smaller, two horned species Coelodonta antiquitatis.
A higher level of aggressive behaviour during the mating season is not uncommon among tetrapods and might have been present in elasmotheres. Musth in the strict sense, however, is a hormonal and behaviour pattern that is peculiar to male proboscidans.
BTW, as far as the composite bows are concerned, wikipedias entry on Elasmotherium has "bowls" instead. I think this is a misspelling, high tech composite bows were of prime importance for members of turkish or - in the case of the late Abbasid caliphate - at least heavily turkified elites; eating or drinking bowls made from the remains of non-halal animals, on the other hand, were probably useless for muslims. Wikipedia also claims that the war Rhino in "300" is an Elasmotherium. This is obvious nonsense, the animal in the movie has two horns and naked skin.
Posted by: johannes | May 30, 2007 6:09 AM
To be precise, on the Volga, pretty much the same as today's Tatarstan.
I thought musth is limited to elephants? Do rhinos have that, too?
Posted by: David Marjanovi? | May 30, 2007 10:17 AM
It is morally wrong to complain about Wikipedia. You are supposed to edit it instead. :-)
Posted by: David Marjanović | May 30, 2007 7:02 PM