See you soon! The giant rhinoceros unearthed in China is one of the largest mammals ever created

The newly unearthed "Linxia Ancient Giant Rhinoceros" lived on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau 26.5 million years ago

Not long ago, in northwestern China, an ancient giant rhinoceros new species was discovered.

The new species, named the "Linxia Ancient Giant Rhinoceros," is one of the largest species of its kind; more likely, the largest mammal ever to walk on land.

The research team of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing described the discovery process of the "Linxia Ancient Giant Rhinoceros". They discovered a fully preserved skull and jawbone from a 26.5 million-year-old deposit in the Linxia Basin, revealing the new species, where they have been searching for mammal fossils since the 1980s.

Like other herbivorous mammals, the Linxia Ancient Rhinoceros has a long neck, a thin skull, and two conical front teeth in its mouth. It most likely lived in open woodlands and ate leaves from trees like modern giraffes.

"This huge rhino has no horns, and it looks more like a horse than a rhinoceros. Its head can reach a height of more than 7 meters to eat the leaves on the treetops. The team estimates that the Linxia Ancient Rhino weighs about 21 tons — the equivalent of the weight of four African elephants.

"These animals are larger than any land mammal alive today." Researchers at the University of Rowan in New Jersey say, "The only thing that could be bigger than them is an adult mammoth." Because we can't weigh these animals and can only speculate based on the approximation of their fossils, we can't know exactly what they are. ”

In general, the paleontological community believes that giant rhinos lived mainly in Asia, from Mongolia to Pakistan; but in Eastern Europe, some remains have also been found.