In Depth A relative to other gomphothere elephants like Gomphotherium and Ambelodon, Platybelodon also had a pair of forward facing tusks in the lower jaw that were shaped into a form of shovel-like structure. Like with its relatives, it is believed that Platybelodon used these tusks as feeding aids for uprooting plants and stripping bark. … Read more
In Depth A relative of the gomphothere elephants, Stegomastodon along with Cuvieronius was one of only two known elephant genera to spread into South America (remains once considered to belong to the Mammut genus are now assigned to these two genera). Unlike other gomphothere elephants (those like Gomphotherium), Stegomastodon only had two tusks that grew … Read more
M. africanavus was an African mammoth that seems to have lived after M. subplanifrons and is important to researchers of elephants and mammoths because it is considered to be the ancestor of M. meridionalis (Southern mammoth). In turn the descendants of M. meridionalis would go onto to produce some of the more famous mammoth species such as M. trogontherii (Steppe mammoth) and M. primigenius (Woolly mammoth). … Read more
In Depth Although Moeritherium is popularly dubbed as a primitive elephant, it is not directly ancestral to today’s modern elephants. In fact in the past the elephants radiated out into a number of different families of varying forms, but like with other mammal groups most of these did survive into modern times. Hailing all the … Read more
In Depth Cuvieronius immediately stands out from amongst other elephants with its curved spirally twisting trunks which are often described as narwhal-like. However something else which this elephant is more famous for is that at the time of writing it is one of two genera of elephants that are known to have lived in South … Read more
In Depth Further Reading – Mammalian fauna of the upper Juntura Formation, the black butte local fauna. in The Juntura Basin: Studies in Earth History and Paleoecology. – Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 53 (1): 77. – J. A. Shotwell & D. E. Russel – 1963. – A Late Cenozoic Vertebrate Fauna from the … Read more
In Depth Phiomia was a primitive proboscean of the Eocene/Oligocene that was still quite similar in appearance to a modern elephant. One of the key features about Phiomia was the lower mouth where two tusks grew forwards into a shovel-like structure. This may have been used to shovel up plants from out of the ground, … Read more
In Depth Like with other gompothere elephants, Amebelodon had two pairs of tusks, one in the upper jaw and one pair in the lower. The lower pair of tusks are of particular interest with this genus since they were shaped to form a shovel-like structure that pointed forwards from the lower jaw. It is widely … Read more
Mammuthus trogontherii, better known as the steppe mammoth, holds an important place for those who study mammoths as it is often treated as a link between the early M. meridionalis known as the southern mammoth and the later M. primigenius, more famously known as the woolly mammoth. M. trogontherii however was larger than both its ancestor and descendent which … Read more
In Depth About Mammut Prehistoric elephants of the genus Mammut are actually more popularly known as ‘mastodons’. The name mastodon means ‘nipple tooth’ and is a reference to the lumpy projections on top of the tooth crown. The name mastodon is today considered an obsolete term for the mammoth genus, yet it is still has a more … Read more