Samotherium

{{Short description|Extinct genus of mammals}}

{{Automatic taxobox

| fossil_range = Miocene to Pliocene, {{Fossil range|11.608|2.588|ref=}}

| image = Samotherium skull angled view from the Natural History Museum collections.jpg

| image_caption = Samotherium skull

| taxon = Samotherium

| authority = Forsyth Major, 1888

| subdivision_ranks = Species

| subdivision = *S. africanum Churcher, 1970

• S. boissieri Forsyth-Major, 1889 (type)
• S. major Bohlin, 1926
• S. neumayri Rodler and Weithofer, 1890
• S. sinense Bohlin, 1926

}}

Samotherium ("beast of Samos") is an extinct genus of Giraffidae from the Miocene and Pliocene of Eurasia and Africa. Samotherium had two ossicones on its head, and long legs. The ossicones usually pointed upward, and were curved backwards, with males having larger, more curved ossicones, though in the Chinese species, S. sinense, the straight ossicones point laterally, not upwards. The genus is closely related to Shansitherium. Fossil evidence suggests that Samotherium had a rounded muzzle, which would suggest a grazing lifestyle and a habitat composed of grassland. One common predator of this animal was the Amphimachairodus.{{cite book |last1=Walker |first1=Cyril |last2=Ward |first2=David |title=Fossils |date=2002 |publisher=Dorling Kindersley |isbn=0-7894-8984-8 |page=280 |edition=2nd American }}

Biologist Richard Ellis has proposed that the skull of Samotherium is portrayed on an ancient Greek vase as a monster that Heracles is fighting.{{cite book| last = Ellis| first = Richard| authorlink = Richard Ellis (biologist) | title = No Turning Back: The Life and Death of Animal Species| url = https://archive.org/details/noturningbacklif00elli| url-access = registration| publisher = Harper Perennial | year = 2004| location = New York| pages = [https://archive.org/details/noturningbacklif00elli/page/6 6]| isbn =0-06-055804-0 }} However, other authors have argued that it is more likely to be the skull of a monitor lizard instead.{{Cite journal |last=Monge-Nájera |first=Julián |date=2020-01-31 |title=Evaluation of the hypothesis of the Monster of Troy vase as the earliest artistic record of a vertebrate fossil |url=https://www.revistas.una.ac.cr/index.php/uniciencia/article/view/12556 |journal=Uniciencia |volume=34 |issue=1 |pages=147–151 |doi=10.15359/ru.34-1.9 |issn=2215-3470|doi-access=free }}