Oreodont Skull Fossil, Merycoidodon culbertsoni, Oligocene White River

Oligocene, White River Group, Badlands, Sioux County, Nebraska, USA. A fossil skull of Merycoidodon culbertsoni, the sheep-sized "ruminating hog" that grazed the floodplains of the ancient High Plains in vast herds. Cranium and articulated lower jaw survive together, the short, deep muzzle terminating in prominent canines, the cheek dentition preserving crisp selenodont crescents on the molar crowns and the characteristic tooth wear of a browser and grazer. Mineralization has given the bone a pale buff tone mottled with darker manganese staining, with fine crazing across the frontals and a well-defined orbit set high on the skull. Recovered from the White River Group of the Nebraska Badlands, the classic North American Oligocene mammal horizon, and presented on an included custom hardwood display stand with a printed identification label. Oreodonts (Merycoidodontidae) are the signature mammals of the White River badlands, so abundant in the Oligocene exposures of Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wyoming that early bone hunters treated their skulls as common currency. Despite the nickname "ruminating hog", they were neither pigs nor true ruminants but an extinct branch of the artiodactyls, endemic to North America and unknown anywhere else. Merycoidodon culbertsoni, named for the fur-trade era collector Alexander Culbertson, was described by Joseph Leidy in 1848 from Badlands material and stands among the first fossil mammals formally described from the American West. The genus vanished in the Miocene, leaving the selenodont dentition seen here as the clearest record of its plant-heavy diet. A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany all winning bids. Item # 205063

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