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Enter prehistoric Proboscidea, ancestors of the elephants, some of whom did not vanish until as recently as c. 400 AD. Prior to the most recent ice age, the order abounded and included mammoths and mastodons. Paleontologists know of about 170 different fossil species they now classify as belonging to the Proboscidea group, the earliest known being Phosphatherium dating from Paleocene deposits in Morocco. A number of creatures described below, such as the genera Stegotetralophodon, are placed by some authorities within the Gomphotheres; others consider these beasts to be true Elephantidae. But uncertainty lingers. Juggling elephants is harder than it looks.
Spoiler alert. Some entries in the Table make veiled reference to entries elsewhere in the Table. Some of you tell us you’ve enjoying discovering these associations on your own, so maybe hold off reading these rubric items until you’ve spent time with the Table as a whole.
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68 | Moeritherium
More resembling a very young hippopotamus than an elephant, Moeritherium was a porky little fellow who lived 35 million years ago. Like the hippo, it took to the water and subsisted on plants.
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69 | Astrapotherium
This genus, like a cross between a small elephant and a large tapir, was related to neither, and was instead one of a group of now extinct South American ungulates; that means they had hooves, which did not preclude their having prominent toes. The nostrils were placed high on the head, indicating presence of a trunk, though some authorities think this instead points to the existence of an inflatable nasal cavity.
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70 | Gomphotheres
Elephant-like proboscideans, they nevertheless evolved in parallel and were not close family. Widespread in North America in the Miocene and Pliocene epochs, after the Great American Biotic Interchange they covered Eurasia and South America as well. Remains dating 11,000 years ago found in Sonora, Mexico suggest humans hunted them. Most gomphotheres had elongated lower jaws as well as tusks, and were loud chewers.
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83 | Pyrotheres
With its proboscis a sort of half trunk, half pig-nose, its song was held to be as haunting as that of a Blue Hawthorne Thrush at eventide.
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84 | Paleomastodon
Ancestor of the mastodon, the paleomastodon, along with the ketomastodon, was a staple of early man’s diet.
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85 | Gnathabelodon
Its huge lower jaw and massive mouth are very hard to draw without it looking like just an elephant being sick.
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96 | Mastodon
Mastodons were mostly solitary animals, unlike mammoths who lived in groups. They went extinct about 11,000 years ago, likely due to climate change and human hunting. Understandably, given they were both big and hairy, mastodons and mammoths are often confused. As are we.
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97 | Mastodonna
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98 | Stegotetrabeladon
With its massively long and curved tusks, the stegotetrabeladon was but one of twelve known species of stegodon. Stegodons were once believed to be the ancestors of elephants and mammoths, but it is now believed that they have no modern descendants.
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99 | Legotetrabeladon
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104 | Deinotherium
Three species are recognised, all of great size. A skull found in the Pliocene beds at Eppelsheim in 1836 measured 1.2 meters (4 feet) in length and 90 centimeters (3 feet) in breadth, indicating an animal exceeding modern elephants in size. Cryptozoologist Bernard Heuvelmans has suggested Deinotheria survive in Central Africa and in the early 20th century were behind a series of mysterious hippo killings.
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105 | Columbian Mammoth
This was one of the last members of the American megafauna to become extinct, with several specimens dating to c. 7000 BC. It is estimated the average Columbian mammoth ate 300 pounds of vegetation a day. Columbian Mammoth tusks unearthed in central Texas were the largest ever found, at 5 meters (16 feet) long.
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106 | GOP
The elephant is the symbol for the Grand Old Party, or the U.S. Republican Party. It originated in an 1874 cartoon by Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly.
Elephants are celebrated for their excellent memories, and this animal was held to represent the Conservative’s veneration of the values of the nation’s Founding Fathers; this creature is now almost extinct.
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112 | Wooly Mammoth
Aka Tundra Mammoth, this was smaller and cuddlier than earlier mammoths. A small population of Wooly Mammoths is believed to have survived on St. Paul Island, Alaska until c. 6000 BC.
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113 | Songhua River Mammoth
The Songhua River Mammoth lived in Northern China during the Late Pleistocene from 100,000 to 10,000 years ago. A mounted skeleton in the Ibaraki Nature Museum in Japan reaches an overall height of 5.3 meters (over 17 feet). The creature would have weighed in excess of 17 metric tons, or three times the weight of the modern loxodont.
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114 | Pygmy Mammoth
This extinct species of dwarf mammoth, estimated to have been outweighed by its ancestor the Columbian Mammoth by at least ten-fold, lived on the outer Channel Islands of California. Dwarf mammoth remains of similar size were discovered on Russia’s Wrangel Island.
Skulls of prehistoric pygmy elephants discovered on Crete featured a single large nasal cavity. They are thought have inspired belief in the literal existence of the Cyclops in Homer’s Odyssey.