![]() ![]() ![]() Roaming the plains of North America from 25-18 million years ago, Daeodon lived alongside a weird menagerie of life consisting of animals both familiar and unfamiliar. The skull of Daeodon showing its strong build and differentiated teeth. Daeodon was in many ways the culmination of this line, being not only the largest entelodont but also one of the last. First evolving in Mongolia roughly 40 million years ago during the Eocene they diversified into multiple different species that spread into Europe and North America during the Oligocene and Miocene. So maybe the famous nickname of “terminator pig” should now be “terminator hippo”, which is just as horrifying considering how aggressive and dangerous modern hippos are! Entelodonts were a very successful group of mammals. This has changed some reconstructions of entelodonts into a more bulky animal than previously thought, more akin to a land-based hippo than an oversized pig. A study published in 2009 by Michael Spaulding, Maureen O’Leary and John Gatesy found that, whilst studying the ancestry of the artiodactyl group, they were more closely related to the whippomorpha subgroup (which contains hippos, whales and dolphins) than modern pigs. However despite appearances the Entelodonts’ closest relatives are not actually pigs. The “terminator” and “hell” parts of its nicknames stem from its huge size, Daeodon was the size of a bison, and it’s grotesque looking face which possessed side flanges, bony bumps and fearsome looking teeth. In life Entelodonts would have looked superficially pig-like with a long snout, hooved feet, tall shoulder hump, short tail and a round body. But what was Daeodon really like? And did it deserve its reputation?ĭaeodon belonged to a now extinct branch of the “artiodactyls”, a mammal group that also contains pigs, horses and even whales, known as the Entelodontidae, or “Entelodonts”. Even its name “ Daeodon” translates as “Dreadful Teeth”, a name that would strike fear into the hearts of dentists everywhere. These have ranged from the “Terminator Pig” (which makes me think of a pig wearing sunglasses and travelling through time on a mission to destroy!) to the “Hell Pig” (which suggests a giant boar rising from a fiery pit accompanied by heavy metal!). ![]() How the Terminator Pig is thought to have looked like!ĭaeodon is an animal that has had a lot of rather intimidating nicknames associated with it over the years. ![]()
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