Palaeomastodon
| Palaeomastodon | ||||||||||||
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Palaeomastodon skull fossil |
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Oligocene | ||||||||||||
| 33.9 to 23.03 million years | ||||||||||||
| Locations | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Palaeomastodon | ||||||||||||
| Andrews , 1901 | ||||||||||||
Palaeomastodon ( Palaeomastodon beadnelli ) is an extinct representatives of mammoths and probably represents the forerunner of Mammutiden in the evolution of mammoths is, so a distant ancestors of today's elephants . It lived in Africa during the Eocene and early Oligocene periods , about 35 million years ago. One of its ancestors was the Moeritherium , which lived about 50 million years ago. Like this, Palaeomastodon was found in the Fayyum in Egypt .
Palaeomastodon already had a short trunk from the fused nose and upper lip. In the upper jaw and in the elongated lower jaw , the incisors had lengthened and developed into tusks , but the lower tusks were clearly flattened and probably served to tear water plants from the swampy bottom of the water. The proboscis weighed about 1 ton.
Like Moeritherium , Palaomastodon also lived in the water or in the swampy banks of lakes and rivers, comparable to today's hippos .
Individual evidence
- ^ Per Christiansen: Body size in proboscideans, with notes on elephant metabolism. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 140, 2004, pp. 523-549.
Web links
- The Paleobiology Database: Palaeomastodon