Coelodonta (/koʊiloʊˈdɒntə/, from the Greek κοιλία, koilía and οδούς, odoús, "hollow tooth", in reference to the deep grooves of their molars) is an extinct genus of rhinoceros that lived in Eurasia between 3.7 million years to 14,000 years ago, in the Pliocene and the Pleistocene epochs. It is best known from the type species, the woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis), which ranged throughout northern Eurasia during the Pleistocene. The earliest known species, Coelodonta thibetana, lived in Tibet during the Pliocene, with the genus spreading to the rest of Eurasia during the Pleistocene.
Coelodonta Temporal range: Pliocene - Late Pleistocene
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The woolly rhinoceros, Coelodonta antiquitatis. | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Perissodactyla |
Family: | Rhinocerotidae |
Tribe: | Dicerorhinini |
Genus: | †Coelodonta Bronn, 1831 |
Type species | |
Coelodonta antiquitatis (Blumenbach, 1799)
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Species | |
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Species recognised as members of Coelodonta, according to Deng et al. (2011), include:
DNA evidence suggests that the Sumatran rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) is the closest living relative of Coelodonta, with Coelodonta also being closely related to the extinct genus Stephanorhinus.[3]
Cladogram of living and subfossil rhinoceros species based on nuclear DNA after Liu et al, 2021:[3]
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† denotes extinct taxa
Bayesian morphological phylogeny (Pandolfi, 2023) Note: This excludes living African rhinoceros species.[4]
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