''Arcanotherium'' is an extinct genus of early

proboscidean Proboscidea (; , ) is 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. Three liv ...

belonging to the family Numidotheriidae that lived in

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

during the late Eocene/early Oligocene interval.

Taxonomy

''Arcanotherium'' was originally described by Court (1995) as a new species of '' Numidotherium'', ''N. savagei'', based on a mandible found in the late 1960s in late Eocene deposits at Dor el Talha,

Libya Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya border, the east, Sudan to Libya–Sudan border, the southeast, Chad to Chad–L ...

. However, after the ''Barytherium'' material from Libya became accessible to paleontologists, undescribed material from the collection prompted Delmer (2009) to erect ''Arcanotherium'' for ''N. savagei''.

Phylogeny

Below is a phylogenetic tree of early Proboscidea, based on the work of Hautier ''et al''. (2021).

References

Numidotheriidae Eocene proboscideans Prehistoric placental genera Eocene mammals of Africa Fossil taxa described in 2009 {{paleo-proboscidean-stub