How many indricotheres would have lived in Helsinki?

Giant rhinoceroids were once named as the largest land mammals ever imagined. They lived in Eurasia during the Eocene and the Oligocene, and they could have potentially lived in the area of present-day Helsinki, Finland. We, however, may never know this with certainty because not only have no fossil remains of those animals been found in what is now Finland, but nearly no terrestrial sediments from the Eocene or the Oligocene are known to have been preserved in the area. Paleogene sediments, which formed in southern Finland, were destroyed by the local river systems in the Neogene and by the subsequent glaciations in the Late Pleistocene. Here, we present an analytical argument about whether giant rhinoceroses, known as indricotheres, could potentially have lived in Helsinki. From the continental palaeogeography and palaeoclimate estimates concerning the palaeoecology of indricotheres, we conclude that they could potentially have lived here in the Oligocene, even if climatically, they would have been on the margin of their environmental tolerances. Considering their metabolism, the Helsinki area could have accommodated 3–21 indricotheres. From a climatic perspective, perhaps closer to three individuals could have lived here at a time.