Chalicotheriidae (from Greek chalix, "gravel" and therion, "beast") is an extinct family of herbivorous, odd-toed ungulate (perissodactyl) mammals that lived in North America, Eurasia, and Africa from the Middle Eocene to the Early Pleistocene.

They had, lower incisors that cropped food against a toothless pad in the upper jaw, low-crowned molar teeth, and were browsers on trees and shrubs throughout their history.

Schizotherine chalicotheres such as Moropus had relatively equal length limbs,[6] and lived in a variety of forest, woodland, and savannah habitats in Asia, Africa, and North America.

Strong hindlimbs and an elongated pelvis suggest they could have reared upright as modern goats do, and used their front claws to pull branches within reach of the tongue.

Some early paleontologists thought the claws were used to dig up roots and tubers, but their teeth were designed for soft foods, and studies of tooth wear show they ate fruit and seeds.

The chalicotheriines' anatomical design, posture, and locomotion show convergence with other large browsers that feed selectively in a bipedal position, such as the ground sloths, gorillas, and giant pandas.

[8] Chalicothere fossils are uncommon even in areas where other taxa of similar size are well-preserved, which suggests they were mostly solitary animals, and unlike horses, rhinos, and brontotheres, never evolved species that lived in herds.

[12][13] A 2004 cladistic study alternatively recovered Ancylopoda as sister to all modern perissodactyls (which includes Equoidea and Ceratomorpha), with the brontotheres as the most distantly related within the order Perissodactyla.

[15] Never common animals, the chalicotheres declined from the late Neogene onwards, disappearing from North America and Europe by end of the Miocene.