Dr. Bakker’s series on Lucy continues below. Check out Part 1: Lucy – Out of Africa. Not!

Our Lucy and her kin were surrounded by hairy monsters – there were more kinds of multi-ton mammals than at any other time in Darwinian history.

Lots looked “normal.” There were a half-dozen species that were elephant-shaped, more or less. And there were rhinos, both black and white, who would look perfectly acceptable today in the Bronx Zoo.

Then there were the Evolutionary Misfits.  These fellows seemed put together from the front half of one species and the rear from another – with odd legs and horns thrown in.

Perfect Misfit Example – The Moose Giraffe

This beast was first discovered in Pakistan and northern India where it was christened “Sivatherium” – for the Hindu God Shiva.  The Moose-Giraffe did look like something out of a mythological-theological  fantasy. Sivatheres were the tallest and fastest of the maxi-monsters, up to fifteen feet or more, hoof to eyeballs. Their body was bulky, in the elephant size-range.  Sivatheres were faster than elephants – they had long, strong legs that combined features of Cape Buffalo and a giant moose. If Lucy ever saw a bull sivathere charging downhill in a hurry, she’d have to get out of the way, fast.

Sivatheres had moose-muzzles. The upper lip and nostrils were carried in a bulbous, muscular schnoz that could grab branches or lift out water plants from ponds.

When Antlers are Not Antlers

At a distance, you’d think sivatheres carried moose-antlers, heavy bone growths that branched and re-branched.  One difference: both male and female sivatheres had them (only male moose today are antlered.) And…if you got close, you’d see something else that was un-moose-like. There was no drop-spot. Moose are deer, and all deer shed their antlers after the breeding season. The main antler falls off, leaving a stub attached to the skull. There’s a rough zone on the top of the stub where the main antler is shed and a new one will grow up next year.

Sivatheres had no drop-zone. Their “antlers” kept growing and growing, all through life.

Therefore – we can’t call the sivathere horny growths “antlers.” We have to call them “horns.”

Plus – Moose Giraffes have too many horns. There are the big, tall, branched things in the rear. And then smaller, sharper, pointier horns in front. Those front horns look like……giraffe horns.

Horns – Hard on the Inside, Soft on the Outside

photo credit: Rennett Stowe

That was the tell-tale clue. Details of teeth told the same story. Sivatheres were part of the giraffe family and NOT moose relatives. Giraffes today grow horns like a sivathere’s but smaller and less complicated. The giraffe family builds their horns in a unique way. Most horned beasts today – antelope, cows and buffalo – have an inner horn made out of bone and an outer horn made out of very hard, tough, dead skin. Giraffe horns are built differently: there’s an inner bone horn but on the outside is a layer of soft skin.

What kind of outer horn did sivatheres have? Skin rots before fossilization. Still, we can tell what kind of covering sivathere bone horns had. Sivathere fossil horns have the same texture on the outside that giraffe horns do – a pattern of small pits, for blood vessels. This texture proves that sivathere horns had soft-skin on the outside.

No Entry Into the New World

Sivatheres are a geographic puzzle. They spread all over India and Pakistan and Central Europe, then down through Africa. But they avoided northern Asia and Europe. And Moose-Giraffes were shut out of North America.

Why?

If we can figure out what stopped sivatheres, we’d have help figuring out Lucy’s travels.