Named By: | Hugh Falconer & Proby Thomas Cautley in 1836 |
Time Period: | Pliocene to Holocene, 5-0.008 Ma |
Location: | Across Africa, India |
Size: | 2.2 meters tall at the shoulder |
Diet: | Herbivore |
Fossil(s): | Multiple specimens |
Classification: | | Chordata | Mammalia | Artiodactyla | Giraffidae | Sivatheriinae | |
Also known as: | | Libytherium maurusium | |
Sivatherium ("Shiva's beast") is an extinct genus of giraffid that ranged throughout Africa to the Indian Subcontinent. The species Sivatherium giganteum is the largest giraffid known, and also possibly the largest ruminant of all time. The Afro-Asiatic species, S. maurusium, was once placed within the genus "Libytherium".
S. giganteum remains have been recovered from the Himalayan foothills, dating around 1,000,000 BCE. S. maurusium may have become extinct as recently as 8,000 years ago, as depictions that greatly resemble it are known from ancient rock paintings in the Sahara and Central West India.