News Paleontology

Ancient, water-loving rhinos gathered in big, hippolike herds

The beasts lived and died together after an erupting supervolcano blanketed their world in ash

A fossilized ancient rhino lays embedded in the ground at the Ashfall research site, surrounded by other fossils

Fossils of the barrel-bodied rhino Teleoceras (shown) are among the most common ancient herbivores excavated at Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historical Park in northern Nebraska. The animals perished roughly 12 million years ago due to impacts from the eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano.

James St. John/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

By Jake Buehler

Millions of years ago in Nebraska, chunky, stumpy-legged rhinoceroses were party animals, crowding together in huge herds at watering holes and rivers.