Four tusked Elephants?
The other family of Prehistoric Elephants
Technically, there are three different families in the Proboscidae order. So where did that come from and why should you care? There have been some great finds this last year in the prehistoric animal world from South American Mastodon families to the more recent Mississipian American Lion. These and other findings are adding to our database of Ice Age Animal DNA and allow us to find their relationship to our current animal species. This article is about the elephant cousins of the prehistoric age.
There has been a debate about the modern elephants of African that caused a stir among this particular order in the Animal kingdom. It started as a DNA search for the difference between the African Forest Elephant and the African Savanna Elephant. The differences have been noted for years, but passed off as random genetic traits. The problem stems from a wandering Savanna elephant male that crossed with a herd of Forest female elephants. It started the crossover and today they are considered one species.
While they were debating this matter, they decided to use several species within the same families to see where the sequence deviated. It is a well known fact that there is a difference between African and Asian elephants. An Asian elephant was used to show that difference. They also added a mammoth to see if there was a correlation to prehistoric animals. What they found was that Asian elephants and Mammoths are closely related.
These were just some of the test subjects added to show the difference in the sequences, but they found other interesting things as well. It started several researchers down the path of prehistoric animal traits such as the study from UC Berkley by Kaitlin Maguire that show the difference between Mastodons and Mammoths. Mastodons were shorter, had a different head shape, and eat tree branches from the forest. As the climate warmed up from the last Ice Age, it changed the terrain from more flora and fauna to savanna like conditions. However, the change is diet is not the primary factor in the animals demise. It has been noted that they also had a strain of TB showing up in many of their carcasses which demonstrate that their immune system also underwent changes after the ice age. It would have also slowed them down and made them more vulnerable to hunting.
The mammoths were larger, but were more adapt to the savanna like conditions. Interestingly enough, they are more closely related to the modern elephant. The Mastodon was an older family, but not in the Elephantidae family. While the Mastodons are an older family/species, they died out 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. It has been suggested that the most recent mammoth findings date to around 5000 years ago. Some DNA was found in the freezer of McMasters University and found to come from around 5000 years ago instead of the previous 7000 BC. They probably survived because they were grazers as well.
Now for the elephant like animals in South America. There were Mastodon fossils in South American that were discovered recently. They even had mammoths, but there was also another member of this order found there. You see, the animal kingdom is divided up into different sections. The elephant like animals are grouped into Proboscidae. There are families like Mammut and Elephantidae. The Mastodons are in the Mammut family while Elephants and Mammoths are in the Elephantidae family. However, they have recently found a third member of this group and one that has four tusks. It has been classified as the Gomphotheres family.
They were primarily in Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. The Mastodons were in Brazil and Ecuador. This latest addition to the family has opened up a fascinating new view of this group. The idea of a four tusked elephant like creature conjures up ideas of monstrous animals but many fossils show the two additional tusks as lower teeth like tusks which stick upward. The Gomphotheres were another group to come out of Africa, marching into Europe and Asia. Some have even been found in Florida! They are really fascinating to look at. Again, this is a different family as the modern day elephant or even the Mastodon, but they give us a fascinating view into the group which compiles these different families. They are closely related to the Asian elephants.
The four tusks were actually two tusks like we think of them and two bottom tusks which were used to shovel food in. They were flattened and in younger animals, they looked more like long teeth then tusks. They are still researching into the diet, habits, and genetic traits of these creatures but they are pretty fascinating. Their diet appears to be more like the Mastodon, eating tree branches and forest brush. They give us another view on the development of the Elephant family. Check it out the next time you want to look up an unusual prehistoric animal! They aren't as weird looking or strange as it sounds. They actually have an interesting story to tell about Elephants the size of buffalo!
About the Creator
Jennifer Allen
Hello. I like writing about interesting and unique facts about science and history like four-tusked Mastodons and droughts from the Bronze Age. Check out my website at historyscorner.weebly.com
Comments (1)
I love how new discoveries are being made of different species all the time. I can’t believe creatures like this existed. So cool