TMHOTW: Rhinopotamus

From Lediblock2

Despite its name, this huge creature is not related to deer at all - it is actually a brontothere, one of the last ones alive. Some smaller forms and a couple of larger species managed to get into Therobis during the Eocene and did fairly well for themselves, but like most of the dinosaurs of that heart, their populations were decimated by the arrival of grass. By the time that a breach opened between Palkragar and Therobis, the brontotheres were just barely hanging on by a couple of species, but Palkragar and its softer vegetation provided a haven for them, allowing them to diversify once again. Nowadays, a fair number of brontotheres exist in Palkragar, and Alcetherium, the rhinopotamus, is one of the largest out of them all. Growing to over nine feet tall at the shoulder and weighing in at roughly 13,000 lbs, this immense dark brown creature is much more massively built than its fossilized relatives, with considerably longer, more pillar-like legs for wading through the water and slightly splayed toes for better distributing its weight across the soft ground of its habitat. Its forequarters sport heightened vertebrae above the shoulder blades, forming supports for a bison-like hump of muscle and fat. But the animal’s most unique feature lies in the skull and jaws. Unlike the more famous Megacerops and Embolotherium, Alcetherium has no horns - it is descended from a more basal branch that lacked horns at all. In fact, the shape of its head is more like that of a gomphothere than anything else - the jaws are elongated, with batteries of long, low open-rooted molars for grinding up waterborne vegetation, as well as a pair of large heavy tusk-like fangs on the upper and lower jaws derived from the incisors, normally kept hidden by the lips when the mouth is closed.

Solitary animals, the rhinopotamus feeds upon the ample vegetation of Hallow Island’s marshes and the Itzune Delta. Its teeth are covered in unusually thick sheathes of enamel for an animal of its size, allowing it to simply tear through rough vegetation, and an enlarged hind gut allows it to digest even fairly toxic plants - the calves often eat their mother’s feces in order to attain the proper gut flora to do this.
Much like moose, these huge brontotheres are quite dangerous animals, often chasing down animals that get too close to their young and trampling them to death like a rhino mixed with an elephant; their fangs are also capable of being used for a very dangerous bite. Very few animals will try to hunt Alcetherium as a result, although their calves, which take up to five years to mature, are a different story, frequently being hunted by both aquatic and terrestrial creatures.

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