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Brontolaguids

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Description

During the late Holocene the major groups of herbivorous mammals faced a great extinction mostly caused by the anthropogenic pression and other consequential events.
The groups that succeeded to endure (swines, cervids and antilopes mainly) soon began to fill the vacant ecological niches. But they were not alone - other kinds of creatures managed to gain a foothold. In the African continent the descendants of hyraxes filled the niches left by the great herbivores; in South America rodents took over a wide array of niches, from medium-sized to big-sized forms.
With a great void of herbivore niches in Eurasia at that time, lagomorphs began to diversify greatly. Some rabbit descendants evolved into cursorialism, they developed long legs and a long neck. Some other grew large and became stockier, they gave rise to the brontolaguids.
These "thunder rabbits" are found all over Eurasia, from the montane forests of the Hyperion mountains, through the European rainforests to the central Asian savanna and the boreal taiga. They considerably differ from their modern-day relatives: they are much larger (biggest species surpass the size of a cow) and they have a massive and strong constitution. Some typical features of the brontolaguids are their long forelimbs and their powerful clawed paws, which they use for bringing down tall branches and foliage, digging out roots and breaking tree bark.

The species of brontolaguid featured here is called thick-clawed caiamaro Cheirolagus caiamaro

This group of creatures was created by :iconjaldithas:
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PeteriDish's avatar
big fluffy bunny!