Discovery

skeleton The first Paraceratherium fossils were found in 1846 by a soldier named Vickary, however, not much else is known about Vickary's experience.

Other research about the Paraceratherium begins with Henry Guy Ellock Pilgrim.  His greatest paleontological contribution came from mapping and fossil collecting in the Siwalik Hills, which is now Pakistan (Prothero, 2013).  This is what lead him to the first discovery of the Paraceratherium in 1907.  Although, he did not realize what he had found, he published papers about the loose upper and lower teeth and the back of a jaw of the Paraceratherium, which he originally named Aceratherium bugtiense in his Memoir of the Geological Survey of India, 1912 (Lewis, 1944).

After hearing about Dr. Guy Pilgrim’s discoveries in India, Sir Clive Forster Cooper wanted to go see the sites in Baluchistan and in 1911 he extracted a large bone bed of the Aceratherium bugtinse.  This was the first collection of a large series of skulls and skeletons.  By the end of the year, Forster Cooper renamed it Paraceratherium.
One of the most famous expeditions involving the extraction of Paraceratherium bones was in 1922.  This was led by Roy Chapman Andrews and included Walter Granger, Charles P. Berkey, Frederick K. Morris and Henry Fairfield Osborn, named “the biggest scientific expedition ever to leave the United States” (Prothero, 2013).  During the third field season at Loh in Central Asia, 1925, the group made their most incredible find as described by Andrews in his writings:
“The credit for the most interesting discovery at Loh belongs to one of our Chinese collectors, Liu Hsi-ku.  His sharp eyes caught the glint of a white bone in the red sediment of the steep hillside.  He dug a little and then reported to Granger who completed the excavation.  He was amazed to find the foot and lower leg of the Baluchitherium standing up-right, as if the animal had carelessly left it behind when he took another stride”.  
The other three leg bones were also collected at the same site, all standing up-right.  It was later determined that the Paraceratherium was stuck in a bed of quicksand and was unable to free itself and therefore, died there (Prothero, 2013).