Desmostylidae is an extinct family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 of herbivorous marine

Marine (ocean)

Marine is an umbrella term. As an adjective it is usually applicable to things relating to the sea or ocean, such as marine biology, marine ecology and marine geology...

 mammal

Mammal

Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...

 belonging to the order of Desmostylia

Desmostylia

Desmostylia is an extinct order of marine mammals which existed from the Arikareean age of the late Oligocene epoch to the Tortonian age of the late Miocene epoch . Their dental and skeletal form suggests desmostylians were amphibious herbivores dependent on littoral habitats...

living along the coast of the Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

 from the Rupelian

Rupelian

The Rupelian is, in the geologic timescale, the older of two ages or the lower of two stages of the Oligocene epoch/series. It spans the time between and . It is preceded by the Priabonian stage and is followed by the Chattian stage....

 stage of the Early Oligocene through the Chattian

Chattian

The Chattian is, in the geologic timescale, the youngest of two ages or upper of two stages of the Oligocene epoch/series. It spans the time between and . The Chattian is preceded by the Rupelian and is followed by the Aquitanian .-Stratigraphic definition:The Chattian was introduced by Austrian...

 stage of the Late Oligocene (33.9 mya—20.0 Mya) existing for approximately .

Desmostylidae are hippopotamus

Hippopotamus

The hippopotamus , or hippo, from the ancient Greek for "river horse" , is a large, mostly herbivorous mammal in sub-Saharan Africa, and one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae After the elephant and rhinoceros, the hippopotamus is the third largest land mammal and the heaviest...

-like creatures.

Taxonomy

Desmostylidae was named by H. F. Osborn (1905). It was assigned to Sirenia

Sirenia

Sirenia is an order of fully aquatic, herbivorous mammals that inhabit swamps, rivers, estuaries, marine wetlands, and coastal marine waters. Four species are living, in two families and genera. These are the dugong and manatees...

by Osborn (1905); to Proboscidea

Proboscidea

Proboscidea is a taxonomic order containing one living family, Elephantidae, and several extinct families. This order was first described by J. Illiger in 1881 and encompasses the trunked mammals...

by Abel (1919); to Desmostyliformes by Simpson (1932), Kretzoi

Miklós Kretzoi

Miklós Kretzoi was a Hungarian geologist, paleontologist and paleoanthropologist and Széchenyi Prize winner....

 (1941) and Reinhart (1959); to Desmostylia

Desmostylia

Desmostylia is an extinct order of marine mammals which existed from the Arikareean age of the late Oligocene epoch to the Tortonian age of the late Miocene epoch . Their dental and skeletal form suggests desmostylians were amphibious herbivores dependent on littoral habitats...

by McKenna and Bell (1997); and to Desmostylia by Carroll (1988), Inuzuka et al. (1995), Inuzuka (2000) and Barnes and Goedert (2001).

Genera

Desmostylidae include the genus Behemotops

Behemotops

Behemotops is an extinct genus of herbivorous marine mammal of the family Desmostylidae living from the Rupelian stage of the Early Oligocene subepoch through the Late Oligocene subepoch and in existence for approximately ....

, Desmostylus

Desmostylus

Desmostylus is a monotypic extinct genus of herbivorous mammal of the family Desmostylidae living from the Chattian stage of the Late Oligocene subepoch through the Late Miocene subepoch and in existence for approximately ....

, Kronokotherium

Kronokotherium

Kronokotherium is an extinct herbivorous marine mammal of the genus Desmostylia of the family Desmostylidae. Kronokotherium lived along the North American Pacific Coast from the Chattian stage of the Late Oligocene through the Aquitanian stage of the Early Miocene and existing for approximately...

, Paleoparadoxia

Paleoparadoxia

Paleoparadoxia is a genus of large, herbivorous marine mammals that inhabited the northern Pacific coastal region during the Miocene epoch . It ranged from the waters of Japan , to Alaska to the north, and down to Baja California, Mexico...

, Vanderhoofius

Vanderhoofius

Vanderhoofius is an extinct genus of herbivorous marine mammal of the family Desmostylidae living from the Middle Miocene subepoch and in existence for approximately .-Morphology:...

.