Amebelodon

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Amebelodon
Lower jaw with the shovel-shaped tusks.

Lower jaw with the shovel-shaped tusks.

Temporal occurrence
Miocene
approx. 9 to approx. 6 million years
Locations
Systematics
Tethytheria
Russell animals (Proboscidea)
Elephantimorpha
Elephantida
Gomphotheria (Gomphotheriidae)
Amebelodon
Scientific name
Amebelodon
Barbour , 1927

Amebelodon is a genus of gomphotheres (Gomphotheriidae), an extinct taxon of Rüsseltiere (Proboscidea). Fossil finds date from the late Miocene of North America.

description

Amebelodon had a habitus like the modern elephant and with about three meters shoulder height and a weight of 3 to 5 tons also a similar size. The most striking difference to today's elephants concerns the structure of the skull . The lower jaw of the Amebelodon was elongated and broadened. Like other Gomphotheriidae, Amebelodon had another pair in the lower jaw in addition to the upper pair of tusks. At just under a meter, these were relatively long and flattened horizontally and thus formed a kind of shovel.

Development history

Amebelodon developed in North America in the late Miocene, nine to eight million years ago, and spread to the Old World . The youngest remains were found in North Africa, they are around six million years old.

species

Several types are described . Sometimes they were a little smaller than an Asiatic elephant , for example A. floridanus ; the largest representatives, especially A. britti , also reached the size and assumed weight (approx. 10 tons) of the large mastodons and mammoths and were therefore larger than the African elephant . Known species:

  • Amebelodon fricki
  • Amebelodon floridanus
  • Amebelodon tobieni
  • Amebelodon (Konobelodon) britti

swell

  • W. David Lambert: Rediagnosis of the genus "Amebelodon" (Mammalia, Proboscidea, Gomphotheriidae), with a new subgenus and species, "Amebelodon" ("Konobelodon" ') "britti". In: Journal of Paleontology. 64, 6, November 1990, ISSN  0022-3360 , pp. 1032-1041.
  • Douglas Palmer: Dinosaurs & Prehistoric Animals. An illustrated encyclopedia. Könemann, Cologne 2000, ISBN 3-8290-6113-7 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Per Christiansen: Body size in proboscideans, with notes on elephant metabolism. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 140, 2004, pp. 523-549

Web links