Nestoritherium Temporal range: Late Miocene to Early Pleistocene
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Skull of N. linxiaense, National Natural History Museum of China | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Perissodactyla |
Family: | †Chalicotheriidae |
Subfamily: | †Chalicotheriinae |
Genus: | †Nestoritherium Kaup, 1859 |
Type species | |
†Nestoritherium sivalense Falconer & Cautley, 1837
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Species | |
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Nestoritherium is an extinct genus of chalicothere; it has been dated to have lived from the late Miocene to the Early Pleistocene (11.6–0.781 mya).[2][3][4] This range makes Nestoritherium one of the most recently dated chalicotheres. It has been found in fossil sites in Myanmar and China.[4]
The genus Nestoritherium was erected by German paleontologist Johann Jakob Kaup in 1859 for the species then known as Chalicotherium sivalense,[5] itself named in 1843 by Falconer and Cautley from early Pleistocene material from India.[6] The shortened faced and brachyodont dentition suggests it belongs to the subfamily Chalicotheriinae.[1]
Nestoritherium fuguense was named from partial lower jaw and palate material from Miocene beds in Fugu County, China in 2014.[6]
Material consisting of a fragmentary upper and lower molar recovered from the (early Pleistocene) Irrawaddy Formation in Myanmar has been referred to the genus Nestoritherium.[7] A femur of possible chalicothere origin was recovered from Pliocene deposits in Yenangyaung in 1897.[8]