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 Eurasianrhinoceroses that lived from about 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 presumably grew to be around 3.6m long and 1.7m tall.[1]
Species
Skulls of Coelodonta species: from up to down, C. nihowanensis, C. tologoijensis and C. antiquitatis.
Species recognised as members of Coelodonta, according to Deng et al. (2011), include:
Coelodonta nihowanensis (Chow, 1978): A primitive species from northern China, it lived in the earliest Pleistocene.[2]
Coelodonta tologoijensis (Beliajeva, 1966): Appeared in northern China around 2 million years ago, and was present in eastern Eurasia during the Early-Middle Pleistocene.[3]
Coelodonta antiquitatis (Blumenbach, 1799): The type species of the genus, commonly known as the woolly rhinoceros. It lived in the steppes of northern Eurasia during the Middle and Late Pleistocene, and was the last living representative of the genus.
Phylogeny
DNA evidence suggests that the Sumatran rhinoceros (Dicerorhinussumatrensis) is the closest living relative of Coelodonta, with Coelodonta also being closely related to the extinct genus Stephanorhinus.[4]
Cladogram of living and subfossil rhinoceros species based on nuclear DNA after Liu et al, 2021:[4]
