Palaeotheres are an extinct group of herbivorous mammals related to tapir

Tapir

A Tapir is a large browsing mammal, similar in shape to a pig, with a short, prehensile snout. Tapirs inhabit jungle and forest regions of South America, Central America, and Southeast Asia. There are four species of Tapirs: the Brazilian Tapir, the Malayan Tapir, Baird's Tapir and the Mountain...

s and rhinoceros

Rhinoceros

Rhinoceros , also known as rhino, is a group of five extant species of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. Two of these species are native to Africa and three to southern Asia....

, and probably ancestral to horse

Horse

The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...

s. They ranged across Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 and Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

 during the Eocene

Eocene

The Eocene Epoch, lasting from about 56 to 34 million years ago , is a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the Cenozoic Era. The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Palaeocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the...

 through Oligocene

Oligocene

The Oligocene is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 34 million to 23 million years before the present . As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the period are well identified but the exact dates of the start and end of the period are slightly...

 55—28 Ma, existing for approximately .

Living in dense forest

Forest

A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...

s, they ate soft leaves, shoots, berries, and leaf matter picked up from the forest floor.

Morphology

Palaeothere sizes ranged from 20 centimetre at the shoulder, and weighed an estimated 10 kilogram.

Genera

• Anchilophus
• Lophiotherium
• Hyracotherium
  Hyracotherium
  Hyracotherium , also known as Eohippus or the dawn horse, is an extinct genus of very small perissodactyl ungulates that lived in the woodlands of the northern hemisphere, with species ranging throughout Asia, Europe, and North America during the early Tertiary Period and the early to mid Eocene...
  
  
• Palaeotherium
  Palaeotherium
  Palaeotherium is an extinct genus of primitive perissodactyl ungulate. George Cuvier originally described them as being a kind of tapir, and as such, Palaeotherium is popularly reconstructed as a tapir-like animal...
  
  
• Propachynolophus
• Propalaeotherium
  Propalaeotherium
  Propalaeotherium was an early genus of perissodactyl ancestral to the horse endemic to Europe and Asia during the Middle Eocene.Its name means "before Palaeotherium", as it is the ancestor of Palaeotherium, another relative of early horses...
  
  

Fossil distribution

• Creechbarrow Hill Site, Dorset
  Dorset
  Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...
  
  , England
  England
  England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
  
  
• Geiseltal, Mittelkohle, Zone III, Sachsen-Anhalt
  Anhalt
  Anhalt was a sovereign county in Germany, located between the Harz Mountains and the river Elbe in Middle Germany. It now forms part of the state of Saxony-Anhalt.- Dukes of Anhalt :...
  
  , Germany
  Germany
  Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
  
  
• Messel MP 11, Hessen, Germany
• Egerkingen, Alpha & Beta fissures, Baselland, Switzerland
  Switzerland
  Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
  
  
• La Debruge, Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur Region, France
  France
  The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...