A range of hills in eastern Balochistan, the tribal country of the Bugti, known for its fossils of the Oligocene and Miocene in the Chitarwata Formation. The first bones of Paraceratherium, the giant hornless rhinoceros that was one of the largest land mammals that ever lived, were found here by the British geologist Guy Ellcock Pilgrim in 1907 and 1908: an upper jaw, lower teeth and the back of a jaw from the Chitarwata Formation of Dera Bugti, which he named as a new species in 1908. Rhinoceros relatives are the most common large mammals in the hills, and the beds also hold the giraffid Bugtimeryx, rarer chalicotheres and early proboscideans, relatives of elephants. In 2001 a 30-million-year-old tooth from the Bugti Hills was identified as that of a lemur-like primate, and it set off a controversial suggestion that lemurs may have arisen in Asia. The pin marks the town of Dera Bugti.
Paraceratherium, the giant hornless rhino, with early elephants, giraffids and a disputed lemur-like primate · Oligocene to Miocene, around 30 million years ago
This ground is protected. Photograph it, record it, leave it where it lies. On US federal land the Paleontological Resources Preservation Act 2009 makes collecting vertebrate fossils an offence, and penalties are real.
Pakistan
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