Daeodon, Formerly Known as Dinohyus, the Terrible Pig

Chalk up another cool name that's been lost to the technicalities of science. This mammalian megafauna formerly, and fittingly, known as dinohyus (Greek for "terrible pig") has now reverted back to an earlier moniker, the far less awesome daeodon.

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What Was an Entelodon?

By Bob Strauss

Daeodon Characteristics

Tipping the scales at a full ton, this Miocene pig was roughly the size and weight of a modern rhinoceros or hippopotamus, with a broad, flat, warthog-like face complete with "warts" (actually fleshy wattles supported by bone). As you might already have guessed, daeodon was closely related to the slightly earlier (and slightly smaller) entelodon, also known as the "killer pig." Both of these opportunistic genera are giant, prehistoric porkers, the former native to North America and the latter to Eurasia.

One odd feature of daeodon was its nostrils, which were splayed out toward the sides of its head, rather than facing forwards as in modern pigs. One possible explanation for this arrangement is that daeodon was a hyena-like scavenger rather than an active hunter, and needed to pick up scents from as wide a range as possible in order to "home in" on already-dead and rotting carcasses. Daeodon was also equipped with heavy, bone-crushing jaws, another classic scavenging adaptation similar to that of roughly contemporary bone-crushing canids, and it's sheer one-ton bulk would have intimidated smaller predators from trying to protect their newly killed prey.