2.4" Extinct Rhino (Stephanorhinus) Upper Molar Crown - Germany

Extinct Rhino (Stephanorhinus) Upper Molar Crown - Germany #257835

This is a 2.4" wide molar crown from the upper jaw of Stephanorhinus kirchbergensis, an extinct Rhinoceros. It's Pleistocene in age, or approximately 120,000 years old and comes from the gravel deposits of the Rhine River. Fossils of Stephanorhinus are much rarer than those of the Woolly Rhinoceros (Coelodonta).

The gravel deposits along the Rhine River used to produce a large number of Pleistocene fossils while miners quarried for gravel aggregate. They have become much harder to come by in recent years as the quarry operations have become more mechanized, often destroying fossils in the process.

Stephanorhinus, or Merck's rhinoceros, is an extinct genus of rhinoceros native to northern Eurasia that lived during the Lower to Early Late Pleistocene epoch. It had two horns and was a relatively large rhino. It weighed over 3,000 kilograms (6,600 pounds) and measured about 2 meters (6.56 feet) tall and 4 meters (13.12 feet) in length, similar to a modern white rhino.