Mammuthus sungari
The division of living beings into systematics is a continuous subject of research. Different systematic classifications exist side by side and one after the other. The taxon treated here has become obsolete due to new research or is not part of the group systematics presented in the German-language Wikipedia.
Mammuthus sungari (in German about "Mammut vom Songhua Jiang ") was described as an assumed extinct species of elephants (Elephantidae) from the genus of mammoths ( Mammuthus ). Your assigned representatives lived in the Pleistocene of northern China and were considered to be members of what is probably the largest species that the elephants have ever produced. She is said to have a shoulder height of 5.3 meters, a total length of 9.1 meters and a presumed weight of 17 tons. This would make Mammuthus sungari only slightly smaller than Paraceratherium , the largest land mammal recorded to date. In the English-speaking world, the species is known as the "Songhua River Mammoth".
The mammoth species was first described scientifically in 1959 by Zhou Mingzhen and Zhang YP, based on bone finds that were recovered in a coal mine near Manjur in the district-free city of Hulun Buir ( Inner Mongolia , China ). It was assumed that it split off from the steppe mammoth ( Mammuthus trogontherii ) around 280,000 years ago , which in turn is derived from the southern elephant ( Mammuthus meridionalis , also Archidiskodon meridionalis ), and survived into the late Pleistocene. Parts of the bones were put together to make skeletal reconstructions, two of which are in the Inner Mongolia Museum in Hohhot (capital of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China) and the third in Manjur.
The taxonomic independence of this species was mainly assumed by Chinese scientists due to the assumed enormous size and the more primitive-looking morphological characteristics compared to the co-occurring woolly mammoth ( Mammuthus primigenius ); occasionally researchers outside of China also took up this name. Renewed examinations and comparison with newly found material, e.g. B. from the river bed of the Wei He near Xi'an ( Shaanxi , China) gave a different picture. It is partly mixed finds. The original features that appear go back largely to the steppe mammoth, but a small part of the existing fossil material is also assigned to the woolly mammoth. The original description of Mammuthus sungari was given without specifying a holotype . In addition, the description is based on heavily fragmented material, as are the skeletons that were subsequently reconstructed. Of these skeletal reconstructions, only the one in Manjur is 80% complete and has a height of 4.33 m, which is within the range of the steppe mammoth. The teeth of this proboscis species, especially the molars , which are often used to differentiate between elephants, do not show any significant deviations from those of the steppe mammoth. It is noteworthy, however, that the finds from China indicate that the steppe mammoth in East Asia, in contrast to the Western Eurasian representatives, did not die out already 200,000 years ago, but survived here until the late Pleistocene - age values were determined on the molars with the help of radiocarbon dating determined from 25,000 to 34,000 years ago - and shared its habitat with the woolly mammoth.
Individual evidence
- ^ Zhou Mingzhen and Zhang Y P .: Pleistocene Mammalian Fossils from theNortheastern Provinces. ( Chinese ) Beijing: Science Press, 1959, 22-34
- ↑ a b Wei Guang Biao, Hu Song Mei, Yu Ke Fu, Hou Ya Mei, Li Xin, Jin Chang Zhu, Wang Yuan, Zhao Jian Xin and Wang Wen Hua: New materials of the steppe mammoth, Mammuthus trogontherii, with discussion on the origin and evolutionary patterns of mammoths. Science China - Earth sciences 53 (7), 2010, pp. 956-963
- ^ M. Sadiq Malkani: Updated stratigraphy and mineral potential of Suliman Basin, Pakistan. Sindh University Research Journal 42 (2), 2010, pp. 36-66.