Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Any of various extinct herbivorous hoofed mammals of the genus Brontotherium and related genera, of the Eocene and Oligocene epochs, resembling the rhinoceros.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Any individual of the genus Titanotherium or member of the family Titanotheriidæ or superfamily Titanotheroidæ. The titanotheres are extinct rhinoceros-like animals belonging among the odd-toed ungulates. The upper molar teeth are bunoselenodont with two outer crescents and two inner cusps. The lower molars are selenolophodont. In some forms the nasals bear horn-cores. There are four functional digits in the manus and three in the pes. Found in the Tertiary formation (Eocene and Lower Oligocene of North America and Miocene of Europe).
Wiktionary
- n. A member of the Titanotheriidae, a family of extinct mammals related to horses and rhinoceroses.
Etymologies
- New Latin Tītānothērium, genus name : Greek Tītān, Titan + Greek thērion, wild beast; see treacle. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Osborn thinks it probable that the huge beast called titanothere finally became extinct early in Tertiary times owing to the form of its teeth, which were of such a type that they could not change to meet a change in the flora upon which the creature fed.”
“In the great quadruped known as titanothere," says Osborn, "rudiments of horns first arise independently at certain definite parts of the skull; they arise at first alike in both sexes, or asexually; then they become sexual, or chiefly characteristic of males; then they rapidly evolve in the males while being arrested in development in the females; finally, they become in some of the animals dominant characteristics to which all others bend.”
“The next summer, at Rattlesnake Buttes, Horrible Horace uncovered a striking set of titanothere bones, accompanied by complete skeletons of camels, mammoths and dire wolves.”
“The thorax, like the head of a titanothere, bears three pairs of horns -- a great irregular expanse of tumbled, rock-like skin and thorn, a foundation for three pairs of long legs, and sheltering somewhere in its heart a thread of ant-life; finally, two little pedicels lead to a rounded abdomen, smaller than the head.”
“The huge titanothere, and the small three-toed horse, both existed at what may roughly be called the same period of the world's history, back in the middle of the mammalian age.”
“The titanothere is traceable back to a hornless animal the size of a sheep, and it ended in a horned quadruped nearly as large as an elephant.”
“Hammerhead titanothere - alien, but not alien enough?”
“Pandora is home to at least one mega-herbivore, the spectacular, elephant-sized Hammerhead titanothere [image above from here].”
“So did the titanothere, an ancient rhinoceros; the doglike hesperocyon, and archaeotherium, a large, piglike animal.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘titanothere’.
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Words of Dinosaurology
This quickly got bigger and weirder than originally intended, so now it's housing terms that relate to the study of dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures. See also Dinosaurs, Pterosaurs, Ichthy...
zygopophyses, ziphodont, plesiomorphic, cleidoic, endothermy, ectothermy, viviparous, vertebrae, cervical, dorsal, sacral, caudal and 628 more...
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Of Ants and Men
While reading Orwell's non-fiction, I ran across his 68 year-old review of this book, which by focusing on the most lurid aspects piqued my interest, and so I checked it out of my library.
myrmecology, scoliid, stirp, huntress, ingluvial, social stomach, annectent, mycelium, formicary, hypha, fungus garden, hypogeic and 20 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for titanothere.
yarb For striking failures and mediocre failures alike will perish and will never be preserved for us to examine, except in the fossils of titanothere or dinosaur, of glyptodont or aberrant ant.
- Caryl P. Haskins, Of Ants and Men, 1939, p. 219 Dec 17, 2008