“Palaeontology, in truth, is based on a narrow but solid foundation of fact, propped up by much that is uncertain or unstable, which future time must test, try—or reject.” So said anatomist James Murie to his peers at a meeting of the British Association, Edinburgh in 1871, and the inspiration for his big picture claim was a strange beast that had been dug up from India’s Siwalik Hills.

Named Sivatherium giganteum over three decades earlier, the hefty mammal seemed to be a mashup of deer, ox, giraffe, and other parts. Murie, for his part, believed the mammal was something distinct but related to America’s pronghorn, acting as a bridge to giraffes, but one can only hope he believed his