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==History==
[[File:Leptodon Gaudry 1867.png|thumb|left|
In 1853, following a field trip in [[Cyprus]], French palaeontologist and geologist [[Albert Gaudry]] stopped in [[Greece]] on his way back to [[France]], and, on the invitation of the [[List of ambassadors of France to Greece|ambassador of France to Greece]] [[Alexandre de Forth-Rouen]], visited a local fossil site at [[Pikermi]], in the [[Attica]] peninsula, near [[Athens]], first visited by German scientists. Gaudry immediatly recognized the importance of the deposits and led, in 1855 and in 1860, two excavation campaigns in Attica under the commission of the [[French Academy of Science]]. In Pikermi, Gaudry excavated the fossils of a diverse fauna whose preservation was almost unprecedented in the Neogene of Europe. Among those discoveries figured two large but isolated mandibles belonging to the same adult individual of a yet unknown large species of mammal. In a seminal book published in 1862, Gaudry described these incomplete remains under the name ''Leptodon graecus'', after the slender shape of its molars. At the time of Gaudry, [[Hyracoid]]s, [[Proboscidean]]s, [[Perissodactyl]]s and [[Artiodactyl]]s were classified together within the order [[Pachydermata]]. Gaudry speculated that ''Leptodon'' was an extinct member of a clade including the modern [[rhinoceros]] and [[hyrax]]es.<ref name=Gaudry1862>{{cite book |last1=Gaudry|first1=A. |date=1862-1867|title=Animaux fossiles et géologie de l'Attique, d'après les recherches faites en 1855, 1856 et 1860 par Albert Gaudry|publisher=F. Savy (Paris) |orig-date= |pages=474 p.}}
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