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Elephantidae is a family of large, herbivorous proboscidean mammals which includes the living elephants (belonging to the genera Elephas and Loxodonta), as well as a number of extinct genera like Mammuthus (mammoths) and Palaeoloxodon. They are large terrestrial mammals with a snout modified into a trunk and teeth modified into tusks.
African elephants were traditionally considered a single species, Loxodonta africana, but molecular studies have affirmed their status as separate species. [ 9 ] [ 10 ] [ 11 ] Mammoths ( Mammuthus ) are nested within living elephants as they are more closely related to Asian elephants than to African elephants. [ 12 ]
Mammoths are distinguished from living elephants by their (typically large) spirally twisted tusks and in at least some later species, the development of numerous adaptions to living in cold environments, including a thick layer of fur. Mammoths and Asian elephants are more closely related to each other than they are to African elephants.
Phylogenetic analysis of nuclear DNA of African bush and forest elephants, Asian elephants, woolly mammoths and American mastodons revealed that the African forest elephant and African bush elephant are two distinct species that genetically diverged at least 1.9 million years ago.
The taxonomy of extinct elephants was complicated by the early 20th century, and in 1942, Henry Fairfield Osborn's posthumous monograph on the Proboscidea was published, wherein he used various taxon names that had previously been proposed for mammoth species, including replacing Mammuthus with Mammonteus, as he believed the former name to be ...
This week, meet orphan elephants that could lead to hybrid mammoths, discover a planet with a possible sibling, encounter an ancient type of mortal combat, and more.
They resemble elephants, but they’re actually Columbian Mammoths said to have gone extinct 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. So why are these ancestors of the elephant crossing Highway 99?
Asian elephants share a closer common ancestry with mammoths (genus Mammuthus) than they do with African elephants (Loxodonta). [4] The oldest species attributed to the genus Elephas is E. nawataensis from the Late Miocene-Early Pliocene of Kenya, though the validity of this species and its relationship to Elephas has been doubted. [5]