Horned gophers are extinct rodents from the genus Ceratogaulus, a member of the extinct fossorial rodent clade Mylagaulidae. Ceratogaulus is the only known rodent genus with horns , and is the smallest known horned mammal.

The Mylagaulidae or mylagaulids are an extinct clade of sciuromorph rodents nested within the family Aplodontiidae. [1][2] They are known from the Neogene of North America and China. [3][4] The oldest member is the Late Oligocene Trilaccogaulus montanensis that lived some 29 million years ago (Mya), and the youngest was Ceratogaulus hatcheri —fo...

Ceratogaulus, a member of the extinct fossorial rodent clade Mylagaulidae, is the only known rodent with horns and the smallest known horned mammal. The function of the large, dorsally projecting nasal horns on this burrowing animal has been the ...

The fossil consists only of part of the rodent’s face, but that was enough for the researchers to study the side-by-side pair of 17-millimeter-tall horns on its nose and to describe it as a new species: Ceratogaulus cornutasagma.

2021年2月1日 · The small but fierce-looking Ceratogaulus hatcheri lived about 6 million years ago on the plains of what is now Kansas. It may have used those horns for self-defense. The creature belongs to an extinct family of rodents called mylogaulids. Today, its closest living relative is the mountain beaver Aplodontia rufa.

Horned gophers are extinct rodents from the genus Ceratogaulus, a member of the extinct fossorial family Mylagaulidae. Ceratogaulus is the only known rodent genus with horns, and is the smallest known horned mammal.

Ceratogaulus (sometimes known as "Epigaulus", and popularly known as "horned gophers") was a genus of herbivorous (plant-eating) rodents that lived in North America during the late Miocene to early Pleistocene epochs between about 6 million and 1.8 million years ago.

Ceratogaulus, a Miocene rodent known only from the Great Plains of North America, is the only known rodent ever to have horns. This feature is all the more unusual given that it occurs in a fossorial (burrowing) animal.

Ceratogaulus Matthew, 1902. Hopkins, S.S. 2005: The evolution of fossoriality and the adaptive role of horns in the Mylagaulidae (Mammalia: Rodentia). Proceedings of The Royal Society B 272 (1573): 1705–1713. DOI: doi:10.1098/rspb.2005.3171 Reference page.

Ceratogaulus, a member of the extinct fossorial rodent clade Mylagaulidae, is the only known rodent with horns and the smallest known horned mammal.