Paraceratherium, the largest land mammal

Paraceratherium, also called Indricotherium or Baluchitherium, was a hornless rhinoceros relative that lived across Asia in the Oligocene, about 34 to 23 million years ago. The first remains were found in Baluchistan, now in Pakistan, and described in the 1910s by Clive Forster-Cooper, and more were later collected in the Gobi Desert by Roy Chapman Andrews's expeditions. It stood about 4.8 metres at the shoulder and was roughly 7 metres long. Weight estimates run from about 15 to 20 tonnes, though they are uncertain because no complete skeleton is known.

Its long legs and neck allowed it to reach foliage above 5 metres, so it browsed on trees much as giraffes do now, but with a far heavier body. As the global climate cooled when Antarctica froze, Asian forests opened up and plants shifted, and large browsers could cross wide ranges in search of food. A cool, seasonal habitat with trees, rather than lush forest, probably suited it. Like elephants, it had a long gestation and few young, which made the species slow to recover from loss. Paraceratherium vanished by about 23 million years ago, as its habitats changed. It remains the largest land mammal known, bigger than any elephant.