A skeleton of “Baluchitherium”, the largest land mammal in the world, has been preserved and installed at the of Natural History (PMNH).
Baluchitherium lived in Balochistan, is an extinct Rhinoceros and the largest land mammal to have ever lived on earth, about 30 million years ago.
It is called Baluchitherium, with “Baluchi” for Balochistan and “therium” for beast. It literally means the “beast of Balochistan” and was named so because it was first discovered in the Bugti Hills (ranging in age from 30 million years to 20 million years ago) in Balochistan.
Giving details, DG PMNH Akhtar Javed said that the average height of an adult Baluchitherium is estimated to have been 18 ft high at the shoulder, weighing approximately two tonnes (2,000 Kilograms).
He said that fossils of this giant land mammal, Baluchitherium, were first discovered in the Bugti Hills in 1908, and included only a few foot bones.
However, a major discovery was made in 2000, when a joint team of palaeontologists from the University of Montpellier, France, and Pakistan Museum of Natural History, Islamabad, found an almost complete skeleton of Baluchitherium from the Chitarwata Formation, north of Sui, in the Bugti Hills after a search of almost 3 years.
He said, “The discovery of the largest land mammal has greatly increased the geological significance of our country for research in the field of palaeontology and has made Pakistan known to geoscientists and biologists all over the world”.
The DG said that museums throughout the world played an important role in public education through research, exhibits, lectures, film shows, club activities, competitions and many other programmes.
“Nowadays, education through museums is being regarded as indispensable,” he said, “PMNH is striving hard for the promotion of informal education through different means, mainly through visitations of school and college students to the Museum Display Galleries.”
