Go to 'thermo-' entry Go to 'dino-' entry Go to 'chondro-' entry Go to 'aero-' entry Go to '-logy' entry Go to 'thaumato-' entry Go to 'nano-' entry Go to '-sophy' entry Go to 'bucco-' entry Go to '-ism' entry Go to '-lysis' entry Go to 'galacto-' entry Go to '-anthropy' entry Go to 'pneumo-' entry Go to '-ploitation' entry Go to '-lithic' entry Go to '-sepalous' entry Go to 'onco-' entry Go to '-parous' entry Go to 'dermato-' entry Go to 'multi-' entry Go to 'dodeca-' entry Go to '-zoon' entry Go to 'vermi-' entry Go to 'crystallo-' entry Go to 'biblio-' entry Go to 'eco-' entry Go to 'juxta-' entry Go to 'facio-' entry
Affixes: the building blocks of English
Affixes: the building blocks of English
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-therium Also -theria.

An animal genus.

[Greek thērion, wild animal.]

Most such names are of fossil genera, one exception being Ceratotherium (Greek keras, kerat-, horn), the genus containing the white rhino. Examples of fossil species are Deinotherium (Greek deinos, terrible), an elephant-like mammal found mainly in the Pliocene epoch; Hyracotherium (Greek hurax, shrew-mouse), the earliest fossil ancestor of the horse from the Eocene epoch; and Megatherium (Greek megas, great), an extinct giant ground sloth of the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs in America. Names for fossil genera are often written with lower-case initial letter as a general term for a member of the genus and can then be made plural, either in -theria (megatheria) or by adding -s.

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