The Deinotherium

The Deinotherium (dy-noh-THEER-ee-um) was a relative of the elephant. They could grow to be 4.5 metres tall. This creature had the misfortune to become extinct about two million years ago, leaving the elephant and the extinct-yet-familiar mammoth to dictate what members of the Elephantidae family ought to look like. Here I'm talking especially about the tusks.

Deinotherium's tusks point back and downwards, not up and forwards like the elephant's. Writing about its bones, people have called this tusk arrangement 'curious,' 'freaky,' even 'comical.' Poor old Deinotherium is stuck being the weird one.



Let's not forget that it need not have been so. If Deinotherium had got a bit luckier, if continents had drifted this way instead of that, if the timings of ice ages had been different, then this creature might have survived into our age. Instead the elephant could well have taken the hit and become extinct. Then we'd be going to zoos or circuses to see the delightful Deinotherium. And in the prehistoric displays of museums, it would be the tusks of the elephant that would make us say, 'weird.' 'Those tusks pointing up and forwards,' we'd say, 'they just look wrong.'