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Proboscidea
The Proboscidea (; , ) are a taxonomic order of afrotherian mammals containing one living family ( Elephantidae) and several extinct families. First described by J. Illiger in 1811, it encompasses the elephants and their close relatives. From the mid-Miocene onwards, most proboscideans were very large. The largest land mammal of all time may have been a proboscidean; '' Palaeoloxodon namadicus'' was up to at the shoulder and may have weighed up to , almost double the weight of some sauropods like '' Diplodocus carnegii''. The largest extant proboscidean is the African bush elephant, with a record of size of at the shoulder and . In addition to their enormous size, later proboscideans are distinguished by tusks and long, muscular trunks, which were less developed or absent in early proboscideans. Three species of elephant are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. Elephantidae is the only surviving family of ...
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Mastodon
A mastodon ( 'breast' + 'tooth') is any proboscidean belonging to the extinct genus ''Mammut'' (family Mammutidae). Mastodons inhabited North and Central America during the late Miocene or late Pliocene up to their extinction at the end of the Pleistocene 10,000 to 11,000 years ago. They lived in herds and were predominantly forest-dwelling animals. They generally had a browsing diet, distinct from that of the contemporary Columbian mammoth, which tended towards grazing. ''M. americanum'', the American mastodon, and ''M. pacificus'', the Pacific mastodon, are the youngest and best-known species of the genus. Mastodons disappeared from North America as part of a mass extinction of most of the Pleistocene megafauna, widely believed to have been caused by a combination of climate changes at the end of the Pleistocene and overexploitation by Paleo-Indians. History A Dutch tenant farmer found the first recorded remnant of ''Mammut'', a tooth some in weight, in the village of C ...
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Phosphatherium
''Phosphatherium escuillei'' is a basal proboscidean that lived from the Late Paleocene to the early stages of the Ypresian age until the early Thanetian some 56 million years ago in North Africa. Research has suggested that ''Phosphatherium'' existed during the Eocene period. Description ''P. escuillei'' possessed rather flat features, centered around a low skull and a long, straight dorsal profile. The skull itself was rather disproportionate, consisting of an elongated cranial region and a rather short rostrum. The sagittal crest, the ridge along the dorsomedian line of its skull, spans across nearly half of the skull itself. The nasal cavity is high and wide, suggesting a large snout in life. One of the main factors of ''Phosphatherium'' body is its nontraditional musculoskeletal system. The shape of its head is composed of attributes of a snout, more vividly, turning into a mouth with a rounded jawline. Similar mammals in its order retained a more snout-like nose, w ...
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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 Elephantidae and the order Proboscidea. The order was formerly much more diverse during the Pleistocene, but most species became extinct during the Late Pleistocene epoch. Distinctive features of elephants include a long proboscis called a trunk, tusks, large ear flaps, pillar-like legs, and tough but sensitive skin. The trunk is used for breathing, bringing food and water to the mouth, and grasping objects. Tusks, which are derived from the incisor teeth, serve both as weapons and as tools for moving objects and digging. The large ear flaps assist in maintaining a constant body temperature as well as in communication. African elephants have larger ears and concave backs, whereas Asian elephants have smaller ears, and convex or level backs. Elepha ...
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Gomphothere
Gomphotheres are any members of the diverse, extinct taxonomic family Gomphotheriidae. Gomphotheres were elephant-like proboscideans, but do not belong to the family Elephantidae. They were widespread across Afro-Eurasia and North America during the Miocene and Pliocene epochs and dispersed into South America during the Pleistocene following the Great American Interchange. Gomphotheriidae in its broadest sense is probably paraphyletic with respect to Elephantidae, which contains modern elephants. While most famous forms such as '' Gomphotherium'' had long lower jaws with tusks, which is the ancestral condition for the group, after these forms became extinct, the surviving gomphotheres had short jaws with either vestigial or no lower tusks (brevirostrine), looking very similar to modern elephants, an example of parallel evolution. By the end of the Early Pleistocene, gomphotheres became extinct in Afro-Eurasia, with the last two genera, ''Cuvieronius'' persisting in souther ...
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Loxodonta Africana
The African bush elephant (''Loxodonta africana'') is one of two extant African elephant species and one of three extant elephant species. It is the largest living terrestrial animal, with bulls reaching a shoulder height of up to and a body mass of up to . It is distributed across 37 African countries and inhabits forests, grasslands and woodlands, wetlands and agricultural land. Since 2021, it has been listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List. It is threatened foremost by habitat destruction, and in parts of its range also by poaching for meat and ivory. It is a social mammal, travelling in herds composed of cows and their offspring. Adult bulls usually live alone or in small bachelor groups. It is a herbivore, feeding on grasses, creepers, herbs, leaves, and bark. The menstrual cycle lasts three to four months, and females are pregnant for 22 months, the longest gestation period of any mammal. Taxonomy ''Elephas africanus'' was the scientific name proposed by Johann ...
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African Bush Elephant
The African bush elephant (''Loxodonta africana'') is one of two extant African elephant species and one of three extant elephant species. It is the largest living terrestrial animal, with bulls reaching a shoulder height of up to and a body mass of up to . It is distributed across 37 African countries and inhabits forests, grasslands and woodlands, wetlands and agricultural land. Since 2021, it has been listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List. It is threatened foremost by habitat destruction, and in parts of its range also by poaching for meat and ivory. It is a social mammal, travelling in herds composed of cows and their offspring. Adult bulls usually live alone or in small bachelor groups. It is a herbivore, feeding on grasses, creepers, herbs, leaves, and bark. The menstrual cycle lasts three to four months, and females are pregnant for 22 months, the longest gestation period of any mammal. Taxonomy ''Elephas africanus'' was the scientific name proposed by Johan ...
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Eritherium
''Eritherium'' is an extinct genus of early Proboscidea found in the Ouled Abdoun basin (early Thanetian age), Morocco. It lived about 60 million years ago. It was first named by Emmanuel Gheerbrant in 2009 and the type species is ''Eritherium azzouzorum''. ''Eritherium ''is the oldest, smallest and most primitive known elephant relative. Description The holotype (specimen number MNHN PM69) is now in the Musée d'histoire naturelle - Guimet in Lyon and includes an upper jaw (with approaches of the zygomatic bone and two maxillary branches, each of the two posterior premolars (P3 and 4) and three molars (M1-3)). The piece is about 6 inches long, 5 inches wide and just over 3 inches high. In addition, the fossils include 15 more objects including the skull bones (frontal and nasal bones), lower jaw fragments and teeth and the upper and lower jaw. It was about 20 cm tall at the shoulder and weighed about 5–6 kg. Generally, ''Eritherium ''shared similarities in the stru ...
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Palaeoloxodon
''Palaeoloxodon'' is an extinct genus of elephant. The genus originated in Africa during the Pliocene era, and expanded into Eurasia during the Pleistocene era. The genus contains some of the largest known species of elephants, over four metres tall at the shoulders, including the European straight-tusked elephant (''Palaeoloxodon antiquus''), and the southern Asian '' Palaeoloxodon namadicus'', the latter of which was possibly the largest known land mammal based on fragmentary remains, but this requires proper reexamination. In contrast, the genus also contains many species of dwarf elephants that evolved via insular dwarfism on islands in the Mediterranean, some only a metre in height, making them the smallest elephants known. The genus has a long and complex taxonomic history, and at various times, it has been considered to belong to '' Loxodonta'' or '' Elephas'', but today is usually considered a valid and separate genus in its own right. Taxonomy In 1924, circumscribed ...
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Elephantidae
Elephantidae is a family of large, herbivorous proboscidean mammals collectively called elephants and mammoths. These are terrestrial large mammals with a snout modified into a trunk and teeth modified into tusks. Most genera and species in the family are extinct. Only two genera, '' Loxodonta'' (African elephants) and ''Elephas'' (Asiatic elephants), are living. The family was first described by John Edward Gray in 1821, and later assigned to taxonomic ranks within the order Proboscidea. Elephantidae has been revised by various authors to include or exclude other extinct proboscidean genera. Classification Scientific classification of Elephantidae taxa embraces an extensive record of fossil specimens, over millions of years, some of which existed until the end of the last ice age. Some species were extirpated more recently. The discovery of new specimens and proposed cladistics have resulted in systematic revisions of the family and related proboscideans. Elephantids are ...
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Moeritherium
''Moeritherium'' ("the beast from Lake Moeris") is an extinct genus of primitive proboscideans. These prehistoric mammals are related to the elephant and, more distantly, sea cows and hyraxes. They lived during the Eocene epoch. Description ''Moeritherium'' was a rotund semi-aquatic mammal with short, stubby legs that lived about 37-35 million years ago Koehl, D. 200The genus ''Moeritherium'', ancestor of elephants.Downloaded on 6 December 2006. Its body shape and lifestyle demonstrate convergent evolution with pigs, tapirs, and the pygmy hippopotamus. ''Moeritherium'' was smaller than most or all later proboscideans, standing only high at the shoulder and weighing . The shape of their teeth suggests that they ate soft water vegetation. The shape of the skull suggests that, while ''Moeritherium'' did not have an elephant-like trunk, it may have had a broad flexible upper lip like a tapir's for grasping aquatic vegetation. The second incisor teeth formed small tusks, although t ...
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Saloumia
''Saloumia'' is an extinct genus of the order Proboscidea. It is one of the oldest members of the order and lived in the middle Eocene of Senegal. It is known only from a single molar, whose pronounced bumpy chewing surface indicates it is probably closely related to ''Moeritherium''. Description The genus is known only from a partial upper molar 10.7 mm long and 12.3 mm wide, missing the posterior section. The molar is smaller than those of ''Moeritherium'', but larger than those of ''Eritherium'' and ''Phosphatherium''. The tooth was low-crowned, more clearly than that of ''Moeritherium''. The masticatory surface had four cusps. However, their tips were apparently broken off before fossilization. The four cusps each formed two pairs, which were arranged perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the tooth, giving it a bilophodont structure characteristic of early proboscideans. The front pair of cusps (the paracone and the protocone) had no additional ridges. The bas ...
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Mammoth
A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus'', one of the many genera that make up the order of trunked mammals called proboscideans. The various species of mammoth were commonly equipped with long, curved tusks and, in northern species, a covering of long hair. They lived from the Pliocene epoch (from around 5 million years ago) into the Holocene at about 4,000 years ago, and various species existed in Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America. They were members of the family Elephantidae, which also contains the two genera of modern elephants and their ancestors. Mammoths are more closely related to living Asian elephants than African elephants. The oldest representative of ''Mammuthus'', the South African mammoth (''M. subplanifrons''), appeared around 5 million years ago during the early Pliocene in what is now southern and eastern Africa. Descendant species of these mammoths moved north and continued to propagate into numerous subsequen ...
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