They died out in Europe and Africa during the Miocene, possibly due to a combination of climatic changes and competition with other artiodactyls, including pigs and true hippopotamuses.

[4] In life, the average anthracothere would have resembled a skinny hippopotamus with a comparatively small, narrow head and most likely pig-like in general appearance.

They had full sets of about 44 teeth with five semicrescentric cusps on the upper molars,[3] which, in some species, were adapted for digging up the roots of aquatic plants.

[7] The nature of the sediments in which they are fossilized implies they were amphibious, which supports the view, based on anatomical evidence, that they were ancestors of the hippopotamuses.

[8] In many respects, especially the anatomy of the lower jaw, Anthracotherium, as with other members of the family, is allied to the hippopotamus, of which it is probably an ancestral form.