Bramatherium
| Bramatherium | |
|---|---|
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| Bramatherium perimense skull | |
Scientific classification 
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| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Artiodactyla |
| Family: | Giraffidae |
| Genus: | †Bramatherium Falconer, 1845 |
| Species | |
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Bramatherium (Brahma’s beast) is an extinct genus of giraffids that ranged from India to Turkey in Asia. It is closely related to the larger Sivatherium.
Etymology
[edit]
The first part of the generic name, Brahma (Sanskrit masculine brahman-, nominative brahmā ब्रह्मा), is in reference to the Hindu god of creation. The second part, "therium", comes from the Greek word θηρίον (transliterated therion), meaning 'beast'.[citation needed]
Description
[edit]Bramatherium was built very similarly to Sivatherium. Alive, it would have resembled a heavily built okapi and had a crown-like set of four, radiating ossicones. Fossils, and examination of teeth in particular, suggested the living animals dwelled woodlands and wetlands.[2]
Taxonomy
[edit]In 2025, Kostantis Laskos and colleagues described two ossicones of B. perimense from the Fourka locality of the Greek Chalkidiki Peninsula, close to localities which have yielded the giraffid Helladotherium. They concluded that Helladotherium should be synonymized with Bramatherium based on their overlapping distribution, nearly identical anatomy, and presumed occupation of comparable ecological niches. This synonymy had similarly been suspected by previous researchers.[3] Laskos and colleagues suggested that the lack of ossicones found for Helladatherium had prevented previous phylogenetic analyses from recovering their close relationship. Furthermore, these researchers only recognized two valid and distinct species of Bramatherium, the larger B. grande and the smaller B. perimense, with characters previously thought to be distinctive between all other species simply due to intraspecific variation.[4]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Geraads, Denis, and Erksin Güleç. "A Bramatherium skull (Giraffidae, Mammalia) from the late Miocene of Kavakdere (Central Turkey). Biogeographic and phylogenetic implications." Mineral Res. Expl. Bul 121 (1999): 51–56.
- ^ Khan, M. A., Akhtar, M., & Irum, A. (2014). Bramatherium (Artiodactyla, Ruminantia, Giraffidae) from the middle Siwaliks of Hasnot, Pakistan: biostratigraphy and palaeoecology. Turkish Journal of Earth Sciences, 23(3), 308-320. Retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02724634.2021.1898976
- ^ Khan, Muhammad Akbar; Akhtar, Muhammad; Irum, Ammara (2014). "Bramatherium (Artiodactyla, Ruminantia, Giraffidae) from the Middle Siwaliks of Hasnot, Pakistan: biostratigraphy and palaeoecology". TURKISH JOURNAL OF EARTH SCIENCES. 23: 308–320. doi:10.3906/yer-1112-11.
- ^ Laskos, Kostantis; Lazaridis, Georgios; Tsoukala, Evangelia; Vlachos, Evangelos; Kostopoulos, Dimitris S. (2025-11-03). "First record of Bramatherium Falconer, 1845 (Mammalia: Giraffidae) from the Late Miocene of Greece and the Helladotherium-Bramatherium debate". Fossil Studies. 3 (4): 17. doi:10.3390/fossils3040017. ISSN 2813-6284.
- Falconer, H. (1845) “Description of some fossil remains of Deinotherium, Giraffe, and other mammalia, from Perim Island, Gulf of Cambay, Western Coast of India”, J. Geol. Soc., 1, 356–372.
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