Chinese archaeologists have found more fossils of Indricotherium, a kind of gigantic rhinoceros that lived more than 25 million years ago, in Shanshan County in the Turpan area of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
The fossil is only the second of an Indricotherium found in that area of Xinjiang, according to relics authorities of Turpan Prefecture.
The first Indricotherium was found in Turpan in 1993. The restored rhinoceros, nine meters long (29.5 feet long) and six meters high (19.6 feet high), is now displayed at the Museum of Turpan Prefecture.
Archaeologists with the Turpan Prefectural Relics Bureau said the fossil found in Shanshan County is the same as that found in 1993 in terms of date and type.
They said the fossil was partly exposed when discovered, adding the size and composition of the entire skeleton might remain unknown.
Li Baomin, deputy director of Shanshan County Cultural Heritage Bureau, said financial help and manpower was needed to make a full excavation.
A total of 5 million yuan (US$603,894) was used to unearth and restore the fossils found in 1993.
Li said the discovery of rhinoceros fossils provided material evidence that Turpan was a home to wild animals about 24 million years ago.
Some archaeologists believe more fossils of Indricotherium are yet to be found in the area.
The Indricotherium, also known as Baluchitherium and Paracaratherium, was a long-necked, hornless rhinoceros that livedin Asia, especially in the open woodlands of what is now Pakistan and China, during the Oligocene and early Miocene eras (about 37 million to 25 million years ago). This extinct ungulate (hoofed mammal) had three toes on each foot like modern rhinoceroses.
(People's Daily December 9, 2002)
