''Loxodonta atlantica'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

species of

elephant Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantida ...

in the genus '' Loxodonta'', from

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

. It was larger than the modern African elephant, with more progressive dentition. It includes

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

fossils from Ternifine,

Middle Pleistocene The Chibanian, widely known by its previous designation of Middle Pleistocene, is an age in the international geologic timescale or a stage in chronostratigraphy, being a division of the Pleistocene Epoch within the ongoing Quaternary Period. Th ...

fossils from

Elandsfontein Elandsfontein may refer to: * Elandsfontein, an archaeological site near Hopefield, South Africa * Elandsfontein, a farm homestead that is now a suburb of Alberton, South Africa {{disambiguation ...

and

Late Pliocene Late may refer to: * LATE, an acronym which could stand for: ** Limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy, a proposed form of dementia ** Local-authority trading enterprise, a New Zealand business law ** Local average treatment effe ...

fossils from the

Omo River The Omo River (also called Omo-Bottego) in southern Ethiopia is the largest Ethiopian river outside the Nile, Nile Basin. Its course is entirely contained within the boundaries of Ethiopia, and it empties into Lake Turkana on the border with Keny ...

, with a final dating in the

Late Pleistocene The Late Pleistocene is an unofficial age in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, also known as Upper Pleistocene from a stratigraphic perspective. It is intended to be the fourth division of the Pleistocene Epoch withi ...

. ''L. atlantica'' was said to probably derive from '' L. adaurora''; however, an analysis in 2009 suggested that ''L. atlantica'' evolved from '' L. exoptata'', and is ancestral to '' L. africana''. The species is divided into two subspecies: ''L. atlantica atlantica'' (northern Africa) and ''L. atlantica zulu'' (southern Africa). The type for ''Loxodonta atlantica'' is housed in the

Muséum national d'histoire naturelle The French National Museum of Natural History, known in French as the ' (abbreviation MNHN), is the national natural history museum of France and a ' of higher education part of Sorbonne Universities. The main museum, with four galleries, is loc ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

, but is listed without a specimen number.

References

Prehistoric elephants Pliocene proboscideans Pleistocene proboscideans Pliocene first appearances Pleistocene species extinctions Pliocene mammals of Africa Pleistocene mammals of Africa Fossil taxa described in 1879 {{paleo-proboscidean-stub