Rhynchotherium is an extinct genus of proboscidea endemic to North America and Central America during the Miocene through Pliocene from 13.650 to 3.6 Ma, living for approximately 10 million years.[1]
| Rhynchotherium
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| Restoration | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Proboscidea |
| Family: | †Gomphotheriidae |
| Genus: | †Rhynchotherium Falconer, 1868 |
| Type species | |
| †Rhynchotherium falconeri Osborn, 1923 | |
| Species | |
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This gomphothere had two tusks and may have evolved from Gomphotherium.[2]
Rhynchotherium was first described in 1868 on the basis of a lower jaw from the Miocene of Tlaxcala, Mexico.[3] Later, the type species epithet R. tlascalae was erected for the jaw by Henry Fairfield Osborn in 1918. In 1921, a gomphothere skull from the Mt. Eden area of southern California was described as a subspecies of Trilophodon shepardi (a now-defunct combination for Mastodon shepardi), T. s. edensis,[4] but was subsequently reassigned to Rhynchotherium.[5] Other species subsequently assigned to Rhynchotherium included R. falconeri,[6] R. paredensis, R. browni,[7] and R. simpsoni.[8] It was the closest relative to Cuvieronius, and may be ancestral to it.[9]
Lucas and Morgan (2008) reviewed the taxonomy of Rhynchotherium and concluded that only R. edensis, R. falconeri, R. paredensis, R. browni, and R. simpsoni could be confidently referred to Rhynchotherium.[10] Because the genotype of Rhynchotherium is referable to Gomphotherium, the ICZN was petitioned to conserve the genus by designating R. falconeri as the type species,[11] which it did.[12]
Phylogenetic position according to Mothé et al. (2016)[9]
†Gomphotheriidae (Gomphotheres)
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