Diaceratherium lemanense
Pomel, 1853
B-VI-177, AC 2375 et 2376 MNHN.F.LIM772
Mammalia, Perissodactyla, Rhinocerotidae
Terminal Oligocene to Basal Miocene, 23 million years ago
Gannat, Allier, France
This block of stone on which we see part of the skeleton of a fossil rhinoceros comes from a quarry in Gannat, the showpiece of the Limagne deposits. It is dated to the Oligocene-Miocene transition.
In 1850, it was offered to the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle by the workers who discovered it. In 1853, Professor Louis Georges Duvernoy illustrated it in his thesis on rhinoceros fossils. The skull and skeleton actually come from two different individuals.
Diaceratherium lemanense, the hornless rhinoceros of Limagne, is one of the oldest representatives of an extinct group of rhinoceros, the teleoceratini, who are characterised by the shortening of the extremities of their limbs. Their ecological niche was probably close to that of present-day hippopotamuses