the place where Paleontology and Paleoanthropology meets Philately
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Slovenia 2020 "Mammal Fossils In Slovenia: Prohyracodon telleri"
| Issue Date | 13.03.2020 |
| ID | Michel: Scott: Stanley Gibbons: Yvert: UPU: Category: pF |
| Designer | stamp design: Zlatko Drčar |
| Place of issue | Kamnik |
| Stamps in set | 1 |
| Value | €0.95 - Prohyracodon telleri |
| Size (width x height) | 42.60 x 29.82 mm |
| Layout | Sheet of 25 stamps |
| Products | FDC x1 |
| Paper | Tullis Russell Chancellor Litho PVA RMS GUM, 102 g/m2 |
| Perforation | 14 x 14 |
| Print Technique | Offset, 4 colours |
| Printed by | Agencija za komercijalnu djelatnost d.o.o., Zagreb, Croatia |
| Quantity | 40.000 |
| Issuing Authority | Posta Slovenije |
On March 13, 2020 Slovenian Post Authority issued the fifth stamp of their multi-year set of "Mammals fossils in Slovenia" shows fossil and reconstruction, on the FDC, of Prohyracodon telleri.
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Prohyracodon telleri is the oldest prehistoric mammal fossil from Motnik village in the Municipality of Kamnik and also known as a Dwarf Rhinoceros. Initial it was named Meninatherium telleri named after Menina Mountain and after geologist Friedrich Teller who discovered it in coal mine, but later it was included in the already known genus Prohyracodon.
Official press release of Slovenian Post published on their official philatelic site and their Bulletin:
"Motnik and its surrounding area were once the site of coal exploration and mining. Miners in years past unearthed a variety of fossil remains in the underground tunnels of the area's coal mines. In the second half of the nineteenth century these included the osseous remains of vertebrates, which had evidently been quite common.
In 1910 the Viennese palaeontologist Othenio Abel classified the remains of a fossil mammal as belonging to the new genus and species Meninatherium telleri. Later forgotten, Meninatherium was rescued from oblivion by the palaeontologist Kurt Heissing, who on examining remains in Austrian palaeontological collections was of the opinion that they belonged to the Prohyracodon genus. As a result, the Motnik fossils gained the new scientific name Prohyracodon telleri, or "Teller's prohyracodon".
Teller's prohyracodon was a medium large mammal the size of a mouflon. It lived in the marshy flatlands where coal formed in freshwater basins. The marshes were also inhabited by crocodiles and other mammals such as Anthracohyus slovenicus. These remains show that the coal-bearing strata in the Motnik area probably formed approximately 40 million years ago, in the geological period of the late Eocene. This means that Teller's prohyracodon, like the other Motnik remains, is among the oldest fossil mammals found in Slovenia."[R1]
Matija Kriinar,
palaeontologist and senior curator Slovenian Natural History Museum
Due the fact that Prohyracodons are known from few fragmentary fossils only, its impossible to make precise reconstruction of the animal.
Perhaps this is the reason for stamp designer to use reconstruction of similar animal: Hyracodon nebraskensis, from German book "Phylogenie der Mammalia, Stammesgeschichte der Saeugetiere von Eric Thenius" published in Berlin 1969. [R3]
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| the image is from the book "Phylogenie der Mammalia, Stammesgeschichte der Saeugetiere von Eric Thenius" | the image is from Wikipedia | the image is from AMNH website |
Entire skeleton of Hyracodon nebraskensis can be seen in Natural History Museum of Los Angeles for example.
Hyracodon was a lightly built, pony-like mammal of about 1.5 m long. It's skull was large in comparison to the rest of the body. Hyracodon's dentition resembled that of later rhinoceroses, but it was a much smaller animal and differed very little in appearance from the primitive horses of which it was a contemporary (32–26 million years ago).
Hyracodonts were perhaps the most unusual of the rhinos in that they had long slender limbs and feet. In this sense they were more horse-like in body proportions than other rhinos although, unlike horses, hyracodonts retained three toes on all four feet. [R4]
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References:
[R1] Stamp Magazine of Slovenian Post, Bulletin Nr. 130 (page 8 with text on Slovenian, German and English languages)
[R2] Find Your Stamps Value Kamnik Museum
[R3] "Phylogenie der Mammalia, Stammesgeschichte der Saeugetiere von Eric Thenius"
[R4] Hyracodon: Wikipedia American Museum of Natural History
Acknowledge: Many thanks to Mr. Rudolf Hofer , editor of Paleontology column in Glueckauf magazine of Arbeitsgemeinschaft Bergbau und Geowissenschaften e. V., who drawn my attention on diffeence between animal name and it reconstrruction on the stamp and Mr. Matija Kriinar, paleontologist and senior curator Slovenian Natural History Museum , for clarifications and nice conversation on facebook.
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