Location: White River Badlands, South Dakota

Weight: 2 Pounds 8.6 Ounces

Dimensions: 8 Inches Long, 5 Inches Wide, 2.4 Inches Thick (Matrix)

The item pictured is the one you will receive.

This is a genuine fossil

Brontothere is an ancient mammal That roamed the area of Badlands National Park about 38-34 million years ago. Badlands brontotheres are also known as Megacerops coloradensis in scientific literature. Sometimes called “titanothere,” its name means “thunder beast,” referring to how a traveling herd of massive brontotheres may have sounded long ago, thundering through ancient environments.

Brontotheres found in the Badlands would have measured around 8 feet tall and 16 feet long, the size of a large rhino or small elephant today, but brontotheres began as only dog-sized animals in the early Eocene epoch. Over the next 20 million years of the Eocene, brontotheres became larger as they evolved and diversified. By the late Eocene, brontotheres reached the massive size we see in Badlands fossil brontotheres today.

Brontotheres are usually known for the blunt paired horns which stuck out from their noses. These horns developed from small nubs into the giant horns that stretch over 3.3 feet (1 meter) long in Badlands brontotheres. Horns tend to be larger in males and smaller in females. Although these horns usually inspire thoughts of rhinos, brontotheres are related to modern rhinos. Even so, Badlands fossils include animals like Subhyracodon, which are true ancestors of the modern rhinomembers of the rhino family.