h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I completed a full-colour reconstruction of the extinct Chinese giraffe, Shansitherium fuguensis, of the late Miocene epoch, about 5 million years ago:

http://s360.photobucket.com/albums/oo45/WillemvdMerwe/Prehistoric%20Creature%20Pictures/?action=view&current=Shansitherium3.jpg

Here's my pencil sketch:

http://s360.photobucket.com/albums/oo45/WillemvdMerwe/Prehistoric%20Creature%20Pictures/?action=view&current=Shansitherium2.jpg

Here are some nice photographs of a Shansitherium skeleton on exhibition in China:

http://news.webshots.com/photo/2253549610016026914nzcbBL

(Move forward from that photo - there are several)

I wrote about Shansitherium earlier ... by the way can anybody tell me how I can link to a single journal posting? I can see my journal postings five at a time but I don't know how to select a single one and paste the link here ...

So I'll have to tell you all the whole story again. Shansitherium was fairly large, I think about 2 m at the shoulder. It was a short-necked giraffe, but with fairly long legs. It also had quite a long head, with two pairs of ossicones (the 'horns' of giraffes). The front prongs are straight and smooth, while the rear prongs are a bit bent and sometimes have rough bumps along the edges. In life they were probably covered by skin and hair - apart from the tips. This species may also, like present giraffes, have used the horns for fighting between males - knocking each other with their heads. The constant knockage would rub the tips of the horns smooth.

It is often said that Shansitherium is closely related to Samotherium. Well it now turns out that 'Samotherium' is not even closely related to itself! That is to say - a number of different species have been thrown into the genus 'Samotherium' even though some of them are not at all closely related to each other. So it seems 'Samotherium' has to be broken up into different genera, and Shansitherium will only be closely related to *some* of those. Which ones, I don't know. Species of 'Samotherium' are currently known from Europe and Asia. Unlike Shansitherium with its paired ossicones, those of 'Samotherium' are single. I'll soon put up some pictures of different 'Samotherium' species.

In my previous posting I said Shansitherium was classified in the Sivatheriinae subfamily of the Giraffe family, making it closely related to Sivatherium, Bramatherium and Helladotherium. This seems now to have changed, putting Shansitherium in the Palaeotraginae, a family of more Okapi-like species (but not actually that closely related to Okapis). In case you don't know what an Okapi is: it is the second living giraffe species:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okapi

The colouration of Shansitherium is, of course, my guess.

This species was mainly if not entirely a browser, and would have inhabited savannah, woodland or perhaps forest.

For those who missed my previous postings: I'm intending to create a series of reconstructions of extinct giraffes to give people the idea just how diverse they were in the past. Only two species remain today, and they're restricted to sub-Saharan Africa. In the past they occurred all over Africa including what's now the Sahara desert and also North Africa, and in Europe and Asia, as far as eastern China. Also to give you an idea of their past diversity: seven or eight species are known from a single Greek island (Samos). Primitive giraffes included tall and slender ones, huge, heavy ox-like ones, small(ish) graceful gazelle-like ones, and lots of things in between.

I hope I'll get a chance to also paint some more prehistoric creatures. I'd like to help people better understand biodiversity ... what it is now, what it has been in the past, what it might be in the future.

Click on the title your journal post, then copy and paste the URL. For h2g2 links, you can cut off the bit before the final slash-- http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/F63395?thread=7709793 becomes F63395?thread=7709793 (this just leads to this journal entry)

Very giraffe. I'm thinking of a whole planet full of Willem giraffes...