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Anthracotherium

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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("coal-animal," so called from the fact of the remains first described having been obtained from the Tertiary lignite-beds of Europe), a genus of extinct artiodactyle ungulate mammals, characterized by having 44 teeth, with five semi-crescentic cusps on the crowns of the upper molars. In many respects, especially the form of the lower jaw, Anthracotherium, which is of Oligocene and Miocene age in Europe, and typifies the family Anthracotheriidae, is allied to the hippopotamus, of which it is probably an ancestral form. The European A. magnum was as large as the last-mentioned animal, but there were several smaller species and the genus also occurs in Egypt, India and North America. (See ARTIODACTYLA.)