Helladotherium

Helladotherium Temporal range: Miocene
Skeleton of Helladotherium duvernoyi
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Artiodactyla
Family:	Giraffidae
Genus:	† Helladotherium
Species
†Helladotherium duvernoyi †Helladotherium grande

Helladotherium is an extinct genus of sivatheriine giraffid which inhabited Europe, Africa, and Asia during the Miocene. ^[1] The most complete skeleton is that of a female, based on a comparison with an intact female Sivatherium giganteum skull.

Only two species of Helladotherium have been discovered, with H. grande being larger than H. duvernoyi. The former has been found only in Pakistan. ^[2]

• 
  Skull
• 
  Forelimb, Pikermi Former collection Gaudry

Palaeoecology

The dental microwear patterns of H. duvernoyi evidence that this species was folivorous and a browser. ^[3]

Taxonomy

In 2025, Kostantis Laskos and colleagues described two ossicones of the giraffid Bramatherium perimense from the Fourka locality of the Greek Chalkidiki Peninsula, close to localities which have yielded Helladotherium. They concluded that Helladotherium should be synonymized with Bramatherium based on their overlapping distribution, nearly identical anatomy, and presumed occupation of comparable ecological niches. This synonymy had similarly been suspected by previous researchers. ^[4] Laskos and colleagues suggested that the lack of ossicones found for Helladatherium had prevented previous phylogenetic analyses from recovering their close relationship. Furthermore, these researchers only recognized two valid and distinct species of Bramatherium, the larger B. grande and the smaller B. perimense, with characters previously thought to be distinctive between all other species simply due to intraspecific variation. ^[5]

References

1. Roussiakis, S; Iliopoulos, G. "Preliminary observations on the metrical variation of Helladotherium duvernoyi and Bohlinia attic" (PDF). University of Athens. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
2. Iliopoulos, George (2003). The Giraffidae (Mammalia, Artiodactyla) and the study of the histology and chemistry of fossil mammal bone from the Late Miocene of Kerassia (Euboea Island, Greece) (Report). University of Leicester. p. 93.
3. Merceron, Gildas; Colyn, Marc; Geraads, Denis (15 September 2018). "Browsing and non-browsing extant and extinct giraffids: Evidence from dental microwear textural analysis". Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology . 505: 128–139. doi:10.1016/j.palaeo.2018.05.036 . Retrieved 13 August 2025– via Elsevier Science Direct.
4. Khan, Muhammad Akbar; Akhtar, Muhammad; Irum, Ammara (2014). "Bramatherium (Artiodactyla, Ruminantia, Giraffidae) from the Middle Siwaliks of Hasnot, Pakistan: biostratigraphy and palaeoecology". TURKISH JOURNAL OF EARTH SCIENCES. 23: 308–320. doi:10.3906/yer-1112-11.
5. Laskos, Kostantis; Lazaridis, Georgios; Tsoukala, Evangelia; Vlachos, Evangelos; Kostopoulos, Dimitris S. (2025-11-03). "First record of Bramatherium Falconer, 1845 (Mammalia: Giraffidae) from the Late Miocene of Greece and the Helladotherium-Bramatherium debate". Fossil Studies. 3 (4): 17. doi: 10.3390/fossils3040017 . ISSN   2813-6284.

Sources

• The Evolution of Artiodactyls by Donald R. Prothero and Scott E. Foss
• Mammoths, Sabertooths, and Hominids by Jordi Agusti and Mauricio Anton
• Classification of Mammals by Malcolm C. McKenna and Susan K. Bell

See also

• Paleontology portal

• Sivatherium
• Giraffokeryx
• Palaeotragus