Paraceratheriidae is an extinct family of long-limbed, hornless
rhinocerotoids native to Asia and Eastern Europe[3] that originated in the
Eocene epoch and lived until the end of the
Oligocene.
The earliest paraceratheres like Juxia were comparable in size with living rhinoceroses with a body mass of three quarters to one and a half tons, while later members grew substantially larger, with the largest representatives (Paraceratherium, Dzungariotherium) estimated to have a body mass of 17 to possibly over 20 tonnes, making them the largest land mammals to have ever lived.[4][5]
Their range spanned from Eastern Europe in the west, the Indian subcontinent in the south, to Northern China in the east.[3]
They are thought to have been primarily
browsers.[6]
Although considered a subfamily of the family
Hyracodontidae by some authors, recent authors treat the paraceratheres as a distinct family, Paraceratheriidae (Wang et al. 2016 recover hyracodonts as more basal than paraceratheres).[7][8] Paraceratheriidae is generally recovered as the sister group of
Rhinocerotidae, the group which contains modern rhinoceroses.[3]