DI'NOTHE'RIUM (Neo-Lat., from (ikdiftpos, deinns, terrible -1- Onprop thrriong beast, diminu tive of P.O. arr. wild beast). genus of fossil proboseitl•ans allied to the modern elephant and the extinet mastodon and of which fragmentary remains have been found in the Mineene and Pliocene rocks of Europe. No complete skeleton has yet been found. The skull, which is essen tially elephantine, is longer, lower, and tapers more in front than does that of the modern elephant. The structure of the nasal bones and of the front of the cranium indicates that the animal had a proboscis, which was not, however, so prominent an organ of prehension as is that of the elephant. The molar teeth resemble those of the mastodon in structure, though they are smaller and have fewer transverse ridges on the crowns. The upper incisors, which attain to such great developments of tusks in the mastodon and elephant, art- absent in the dinotherium but the lower incisors, together with the fused ends of the mandibles, arc turned downward and back ward to form a pair of strong tusks, eomparaule with, though not at all to, those of the walrus. The bones which have been found
associated with these dinotherium skulls, and which probably belting to individuals of the same genus, are of massive build like those of other probos•idea, and indicate that the dinotherium lived in about the same habitats of dense forests with soft yielding ground as do the modern elephants, and that it was not an amphibious animal, as was for a long time supposed. The largest species of dinotherium lived in Pliocene time and rivaled in size the nutstodon and mam moth. The skulls of this genus are found quite abundantly in the Miocene deposits of central Europe, in the Lower Pliocene of India and the Upper Pliocene of Crow, and are often SSO• e in tell with remains of the No dinotherium remains have yet been found in America. See ELEPHA:AT ; ...MAMMOTH ; :MASTO DON.