570 vanished lives

115Cenozoic

Ice Age art usually shows this immense cat without the heavy mane of many modern male lions.

116Cenozoic

Without large predators, this heavy island rabbit evolved small ears and lost efficient hopping.

140Cenozoic

Two enormous hollow nasal horns and a smaller rear pair belonged to an embrithopod, not a rhinoceros.

176Cenozoic

Strong limbs could still bear weight, yet long feet paddled through water and the ear region was adapting to underwater sound.

177Cenozoic

Bundles of enamel-wrapped tooth columns and broad limbs helped it crop aquatic plants in tidal flats and shallow water.

178Cenozoic

Rear-shifted nostrils and four tusks document a distinctive skull; a short trunk is a soft-tissue reconstruction inferred from the bones.

179Cenozoic

This rhinoceros-sized marsupial clipped plants with two forward incisors and moved between seasonal water sources.

241Cenozoic

Tapir-sized and short-faced, it lived before proboscideans acquired the elephant's long trunk and giant body.

242Cenozoic

A widened jaw and flattened lower tusks formed a shovel-like cutting edge for tough vegetation.

243Cenozoic

Only the lower jaw carried tusks, curving downward beneath a body taller than most modern elephants.

244Cenozoic

Two upper and two lower tusks gave its elongated head a four-tusked profile absent from living elephants.

245Cenozoic

Hyaenodon horridus was a meat-eating hyaenodont mammal, not a hyena; its large skull can inflate skull-length mass estimates.

246Cenozoic

A bear-heavy torso combined with a dog-like long skull and tail, inspiring the name bear-dog.

247Cenozoic

A giant hyaenodont with a skull about 66 cm long. Body-mass estimates are uncertain, and it was neither a hyena nor a big cat.

248Cenozoic

A sloth lineage with aquatic adaptations, including dense bones that could help control buoyancy.

249Cenozoic

It may have approached a tonne, with giant incisors capable of generating exceptional bite forces.

291Cenozoic

Long hind legs and a balancing tail powered a distinctive hopping gait through the forest floor.

293Cenozoic

Hoof-like toes and a large predatory skull belonged to a carnivorous mammal with no modern equivalent.

294Cenozoic

An early whale with four weight-bearing legs: Pakicetus attocki was wolf-sized and lived near rivers in Pakistan about 50 million years ago.

295Cenozoic

A streamlined whale body still carried tiny external hind limbs with no walking function.

296Cenozoic

A broad hollow nasal ram rose from the skull of this immense brontothere.

297Cenozoic

A forked Y-shaped nasal horn joined two brow horns in the most elaborate protoceratid display.

298Cenozoic

Short legs and a barrel body gave this grazing rhinoceros a hippo-like outline.

299Cenozoic

Thick hide reinforced by tiny bony nodules protected this large ground sloth.