Pachydermata (meaning 'thick skin', from the Greek παχύς, pachys, 'thick', and δέρμα, derma, 'skin') is an obsolete order of mammals described by Gottlieb Storr, Georges Cuvier, and others, at one time recognized by many systematists.
Pachydermata is an obsolete order of mammals described by Gottlieb Storr, Georges Cuvier, and others, at one time recognized by many systematists.
Outside strict biological classification, the related term pachyderm is commonly used to describe elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses and tapirs.
[1] The members of the grouping are now divided into the Proboscidea (represented among living species only by three species of elephants), the Perissodactyla (odd-toed ungulates, including horses, tapirs, and rhinoceroses), the Suina (pigs and peccaries), the Hippopotamidae, Hyracoidea (hyraxes) and Sirenians (Manatee and dugong).
[2] One naturalist, Delabere Pritchett Blaine, has speculated that:Baron Cuvier, it is probable, was led to arrange the horse genus among the Pachydermata, less on account of the thickness and tenacity of the skin, than on the slight departure from a true monodactylous character, which every member of this family exhibits in having vestiges of two additional toes under the skin.According to genetic studies, elephants, rhinoceroses, tapirs and hippopotamuses are classified as separate clades altogether.