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Skull of a Gigantic Beast
In the spring of 1923, a group of Museum researchers embarked on the second year of the Central Asiatic Expeditions. They made camp at Irdin Manha, "the Valley of the Jewels," in Inner Mongolia.
A day or two after the team’s arrival, Kan Chuen Pao, a young paleontological assistant, made an amazing find: a massive, 1-meter-long (3-feet-long) skull with huge teeth. It was given the name Andrewsarchus mongoliensis, in honor of the expedition’s leader, Roy Chapman Andrews.
It remains the only specimen ever found of the species, which lived about 45 million years ago. Scientists think that the animal was about 1.8 meters (6 feet) high at the shoulder and 3.5 meters (12 feet) long. This size would make Andrewsarchus the largest known meat-eating land mammal that ever lived!
