The gigantean Deinotherium (Deinotherium giganteum), an animal that lived in Crete 9 million years ago is now revived in the premises of the Natural History Museum of Crete. The excavations held by the museum at the area of Agia Fotia in Siteia, exposed an almost complete skeleton of the extinct animal, which appears to be one of the largest animals of this species that have ever lived on earth. Teeth, vertebrae, ribs, and many other bones, amongst them the lower jaw with a complete tusk which represents the largest Deinotherium tusk ever found (1.5 m), have been brought to the surface.
A group of scientists from the museum and a technical team from the Netherlands studied the fossils, made comparisons with other similar findings and managed to reconstruct the body of this animal to its real size. The body sized up to 4.5 meters high and 6.5 m in length is now exhibited at the museum and it is the first time globally that visitors have the chance to see how the largest mammal that ever lived on Crete is reconstructed and what it really looked like.