A three-horned, giraffelike animal that was named after Padme Amidala, a Star Wars monarch, is now Xenokeryx amidalae. Xenokeryx amidalae is Spanish for “strange horns of Amidala” and was discovered in Spain’s Cuenca region. It shares a common ancestor to modern-day giraffes. Israel M. Sanchez (Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales – CSIC) and his colleagues published their findings in the open-access journal PLoS ONE. It was a three-horned, palaeomerycid animal. The strange three-horned Eurasian Miocene Miocene ruminants that are now extinct were fossils from China and Spain that revealed their ancestry. Museum says “This discovery establishes a shared ancestry of palaeomerycid ruminants, and the evolution of giraffe.” Image: National Museum of Natural History Madrid. Xenokeryx amidalae was ruminant. Scientists classify the palaeomerycids to their clade based upon shared features with most well-known members of the group. Sanchez and his colleagues confirmed that they were ruminants. Clade refers to a group organisms that are believed to have originated from the same ancestor. This skull was preserved well, including the frontal and supra-occipital “T-shaped” cranial appendages. The specimen was found in Spain’s middle Miocene rocks. Some scientists believed that Eurasian Palaeomerycids could be closely related to North American Dromomerycids, distant relatives of deer. This latest study, however, insists that they are not related despite the apparent similarities. The Giraffomorpha Clade is the least inclusive, which contains Triceromeryx, Giraffa, and palaeomerycids. This is a reconstruction X. amidalae. (Image: eurekalert.org. Credit to Israel M. Sanchez. X. amidalae, a herbivorous creature about the same size as a deer, was approximately 7 inches long. Two small, sabre-like horns were found above their eyes. The larger, T-shaped horn was located on the head. Sanchez thinks that the large canines on top of their heads were sabre-like and could have been used to display them to others. Females did not have fangs or horns. X. amidalae preferred grasslands and rivers and likely rubbed shoulders and ate with horses, rhinos and ancestors to elephants as well as ‘bear dogs’, an extinct large predator. Most likely, its diet consisted mostly of fruits and roots. Although it didn’t have long necks, the closest contemporary relatives are believed to be giraffe and Okapi. X. amidalae is named for Padme Amidala (a Star Wars fictional character). Israel Sanchez said: “Establishing palaeomerycids’ place in the ruminant trees gives us insight into the evolutionary history and the large clade (Mammalia and Cetartiodactyla) of pecoran-ruminants. It also shows us how the diversity of an ancient lineage, which includes giraffes (Giraffa, Okapia, and Rios), has been referred to as Systematics and Evolution. Sanchez IM. e HTML1 _____ PLoSONE HTML2_ DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone. 0143034.
A bizarre three-horned giraffe like animal, named after Star Wars queen Amidala
