Paraceratherium… from Morocco?

[Opabinia Blues]

While perusing the tents at this year’s gem, mineral, and fossil show in Denver I found myself in a particular tent with a Moroccan seller (one of dozens present). Here, I zeroed in on a flat of bones which I immediately recognized as those from a large mammal, with the astragalus giving it away as some sort of perissodactyl. I asked the vendor about them, and to my shock he told me these were the bones of Paraceratherium, and that they were newly discovered and this is the first time he had offered them. As is typical with Moroccan sellers, he couldn’t offer me any specific geologic provenance other than the anti-atlas mountains of Morocco. Being a fan of unusual mammal fossils, I bought an astragalus and a phalanx bone. 
 

Paraceratherium is a genus of gigantic hornless rhinoceroses from the Oligocene, and it holds the title of being perhaps the largest terrestrial mammals to ever live. If these fossils are indeed from Paraceratherium then they would be incredible pieces to add to my collection (and I had the vendor spell out the name to make sure I had heard him correctly). 
 

Here’s the thing though… Paraceratherium has never been documented from Morocco, or anywhere in Africa. It’s fossils appear to be restricted to Central Asia. In fact, I couldn’t find documentation of any member of the Peraceratheriidae family coming from Morocco, or anywhere in Africa, from any academic source. I also couldn’t find any record online of this sort of material even being offered for sale. The only Eocene/Oligocene mammals that frequently come out of that country that I could find were archaeocete whales.

 

So, these bones are a bit of a puzzler… I am of course skeptical that they’re from Peraceratherium, but what I do know for sure is that they’re fossil bones from an absolutely gigantic perissodactyl. I would be interested to hear if anyone else has seen similar material before, or has any resources about what these could be or where exactly they come from.

Phalanx on the left, astragalus on the right. For rough scale, the phalanx is roughly 6.5 centimeters long and the astragalus is roughly 12 centimeters long.

Astragalus:

 

Astragalus compared to astragaluses from  Megacerops (left) and Hyracodon (center) (both from the White River Formation) for relative size:

 

The phalanx:

 

Phalanx compared to phalanges from Trigonias from the Chadron Member of the White River Formation:

[rocket]

Rhino-Material is less known from Morocco. Might come up in oligocene deposits near Dakhla and in miocene deposits from Skoura near Ouarzazate. About the miocene material a paper exists (I add it), about the oligocene material there it no paper (as far as I know). Rare on the market

 

Geraads322.pdf