Adaptation

Paraceratherium had a huge body volume and mass compared to their surface area (Prothero, 2013) and needed a waySkull of Paraceratherium to regulate their body heat.  Since elephants have very large ears, many experts infer that the Paraceratherium most likely had large external ears which helped regulate their body heat.  Since they were such large animals, a large surface area of the external ears was required to keep the animal at the proper temperature.  It is also thought that they had skin without hair since it would hold in body heat that would need to escape to avoid overheating (Sander, 2011).
The Paraceratherium skull has large nasal incisions which leads scientists to think they possessed a trunk or proboscis, like a tapir.  A prehensile lip should be shown because they often feed off of the leaves on tall trees (Sander, 2011).  The long lip allows them to wrap around the branch and strip off the leaves with their teeth.  The teeth of the Paraceratherium are very small in comparison with the size of their skull, often compared to the size of apples.