These amazing primitive mammals
These amazing primitive mammals
Remained in the shadows of history
The first mammals appeared on earth 265 million years ago, 10 million years after the first dinosaurs. However, for the first 160 million years when dinosaurs ruled, they remained in the shadows of history. About 300 million years ago, the ancient ancestors of reptile mammals lived therapsyls. They are very similar to us.
The earliest ancestor of modern mammals
was found by paleontologists in 570-million-year-old sediments in southern China. One group of scientists discovered primitive sponges, the other - embryos in the early stages of development, which have the same structure as all modern mammals.
The oldest mammal
Megazostrodon (1966), found in Thaba Litau, Lesotho, estimated to be 190,000,000 years old.
The oldest mammals
Ancient mammal-like animal with tusks
Large tusks were evidence of the sexual division of land animals. The oldest animal with tusks lived in Europe before the advent of dinosaurs. It was a male Diictodona, a barrel-like herbivore, had two tusks extending from its lower jaw. The age of his remains is 252-260 million years. Diictodon appeared in the late Permian period of the Paleozoic era, at least 30 million years earlier than the dinosaurs. It belonged to the group of mammal-like reptiles and was an evolutionary relative of the animals from which mammals later evolved. It reached 70-80 centimeters in length.
Why did Diictodon need tusks?
These fangs were used as weapons - perhaps in mating ritual or physical confrontations. They were not used for obtaining food, since females did not have them. They also could not dig or dig in the ground - since no signs of wear were found on the ends. It seems that the tusks became longer, wider and thicker as the animals aged, but if the animal lost them (for example, in a fight), new ones did not grow. All this suggests that the tusks were part of combat equipment.
Mastodon
Mastodons (proboscis) that lived in the Pleistocene were the size of an elephant; they lived on all continents.
Ancestor of elephants and rhinoceroses
Scientists know of six new species of large prehistoric mammals that roamed mountainous Ethiopia 27 million years ago. These include the ancient ancestor of the elephant and the rhinoceros-like animal. These are Africa's own mammals, which became extinct because they could not cope with competition from Eurasian lions, tigers, hippos, hyenas and antelopes.
Mastodon is the largest mammal of the glaciation period
Elephantine Mastodon americanus lived in North America during the Pleistocene until the end of the glaciation. The length of its body was 4.5 m, the length at the shoulders was 2-3 m. This animal became extinct due to climate warming. It belonged to the Mammutidae family, originally from North Africa, which spread to Eurasia and North America 15 million years ago. It got its name from its “nipple tooth”. It is known that mastodons that lived in the middle of the Ice Age were smaller in size than their counterparts that lived later in the forests. Late mastodons adapted to life in coniferous forests and swamps. They used their tusks to break tree branches. The mastodon's tusks were short and straight, and its teeth were sharp. Females were smaller than males, and their tusks were also smaller and lighter. They were covered with wool with a thick undercoat (5-18 cm long). Fossil remains of mastodons have been found in the northern United States and Canada. The honor of discovering this animal belongs to Baron Cuvier.
Dark period in African history
It occurs between 24 and 32 million years ago. It was then that the prehistoric continent known as Afro-Arabia began to connect with Eurasia. After this “contact”, immigrants settled in Africa - lions, tigers, hippos, hyenas and antelopes. Before the connection occurred, Africa had evolved many of its own mammals. They died out without ever seeing Eurasia.
Cave lion
Scientists have found drawings and bones of cave lions in grottoes in Spain, France, England, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy, Algeria and Syria. There was a time when lions lived not only in Africa, but also on the Arabian Peninsula. In Persia, North-West India and even in Turkey, Greece, the Caucasus and the lower reaches of the Don. In Ukraine, near Odessa, Tiraspol, Kiveom and even in the Urals and Perm region, traces of lions have been found.
Saber-toothed tiger - Smilidon californicus
...inhabited North America (California) and South America (Argentina) during the late Pleistocene. It had a body 1.2 m long and a short tail, like manul cats. A pair of long fangs of the upper jaw helped to cope with prey. His shoulders and neck were muscular. Saber-toothed tigers attacked slow-moving prey, as they needed time to sink their huge teeth into the victim. This is the hypothesis.
Fangs 40 cm
U saber-toothed tigers - Smilodon fatalis there were terrible 40-centimeter fangs.
Scull mahairoda- this is also the name of saber-toothed tigers, which lived for about two million years. Was sold in Los Angeles for 200 thousand dollars.
Ancient elephants caught fish
Forty kilometers from Munich, fragments of the skeleton of a little-studied subspecies of elephants that lived on Earth 15 million years ago were found. His tusks were round in shape, with which he could dig up plants and even catch fish.
Ancient elephant
Was a terrible animal. A fossilized tusk, teeth and bones of a prehistoric ancestor of the elephant were discovered on Crete. Deinotherium gigantissimum, whose fangs went down from the chin. The animal's height reached 4.5 meters, and it was the largest representative of the doslon group. His remains are about 7 million years old. Until now, his remains have been found mainly in Central Europe. Fassoulas suggests that these creatures reached Crete from Asia Minor, crossing the Aegean Sea and visiting the islands of Rhodes and Karpathos on their way. Apparently, primitive elephants could swim long distances in search of food.
Myths turned ancient elephants into Cyclops
The remains of ancient elephants have long been found on the Greek mainland. This suggested that the ancient Greeks made these animals part of their mythology. The large hole in the center of their skull - the nasal cavity, hidden by the trunk in a living elephant - could be the source of stories about the Cyclops, the mythical giants with one eye mentioned in Homer's Odyssey and other works.
Palaeoloxodon elephants, whose height exceeded 3 meters, lived tens of thousands of years ago (during the Pleistocene era) in a cold climate zone in the territory of modern northeastern China and Japan.
The evolution of ancient elephants can be traced by changes in molars.
Mastodon had small, plank teeth (Mastodon "breast-toothed") with three to four teeth, not too convex. Stegodon, the immediate ancestor of modern elephants, had “roof-toothed” teeth, and their size was already much larger than that of mastodon. The primitive elephants Primelephas, which included Stegodon, gave rise to the later extinct mammoths Mammoths and two modern species Loxodonta and Elephas.
Stegodon - dwarf elephant
Lived on the island of Flores (Indonesia).
Woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius)
...this well-known contemporary of the Ice Age (Late Pleistocene) was reliably protected from the cold by a thick layer of subcutaneous fat and long hair. His hump with fat reserves was located immediately behind his majestic head. The mammoth was smaller in size than other members of the family; the height at the withers was 2.7 m. Mammoths grazed in the tundra, eating low vegetation, which they had to extract with their tusks directly from under the snow. Known from remains. Found in Siberia and Alaska, as well as from rock paintings in caves in Spain and France, where primitive artists left evidence of their encounters with mammoths.
What kind of teeth did a mammoth have?
The known species of mammoth Mammuthus planifrons and Mammuthus meridionalis had teeth with 12 and 14 teeth, respectively, and the woolly mammoth Mammuthus primigenius had teeth with 27 teeth, which was associated with the peculiarity of its diet.
Herds of mammoths grazed in Siberia
DNA obtained from excavations in Siberia shows that herds of mammoths grazed in the lush tundra in the past. However, 11 thousand years ago, as a result of climate change, pastures began to disappear, which could have caused the disappearance of some animals.
Origin of Carnivores
Carnivorous animals descend from primitive insectivores of the Cretaceous period. Closely related to them are the primitive predatory Creodotita, which constitute a special extinct suborder of carnivores, numerous in the Paleocene, flourishing in the Eocene and disappearing in the Miocene. In the family Miacidae they are small animals with an elongated body, short legs, a long tail, and a rather large brain. Miacids lived in forests, in trees and were very similar to real predatory animals.
The first small representatives of the order of carnivores resembling civets or martens in appearance and lifestyle, appeared in the Upper Eocene. In the Oligocene, carnivores took a dominant position among other terrestrial carnivorous animals and reached such diversity that all the main seven families that exist to this day emerged among them.
The most ancient family of dogs is considered. Already in the Upper Eocene, primitive dogs lived in North America and Europe, in many respects more similar to civets or martens. In the Upper Tertiary, initial adaptive types began to emerge among the canids, from which the modern genera of dogs, foxes, and others developed in the Upper Miocene and Pliocene. The family of raccoons, close to them, evolved from the ancient canids. In the Miocene and Pliocene, it was widespread not only in America and Asia, as it is now, but also in Europe.
Cave bear
The bear family belongs to the same group as the canids. It arose in the Middle Miocene, and in the Pleistocene, bears appeared that belonged to the modern genus of bears (Ursus), but were distinguished by their enormous size. Cave bears that lived in the Pleistocene had a body length of about 3 m; they lived in Eurasia.
Mustelidae - the latest group
The mustelid family arose in the Oligocene. By the Miocene, the main systematic groups emerged among them, associated with various directions of adaptation to the environment and different lifestyles. Many species and genera of mustelids became extinct in the Tertiary and Quaternary periods.
Ancient wivers
The viverrid group from the order Carnivora is the most ancient of its modern relatives of the suborder Aeluroidea (or Feloidea). . In the Oligocene and even later, civets were distinguished not only by a variety of forms, but also by a much more extensive distribution than now. They were widely represented in Europe and Asia, but were absent in America. At the end of the Miocene, hyenas branched off from the civet family. Their most ancient representatives were very similar to their ancestors - civets, but later, as they switched to feeding on carrion, they acquired modern characteristic adaptive features. The most specialized cat family among carnivores appears to have emerged at the end of the Eocene, and in the Oligocene achieved great diversity and widespread distribution.
Primitive wolf Canis lupus
A relative of modern timber wolves lived in European forests of the Pleistocene era. To hunt, wolves gathered in packs. Adult wolves reached a length of 2.5 m (6 ft) and a height at the withers of 1.3 m (3 ft). They ate small mammals, sometimes large ones. The ancient ancestor of marsupials was the size of a mouse. The skeleton of a creature discovered in the mountains of China is considered the most ancient ancestor of modern marsupial mammals - opossums, kangaroos, koalas and others. The remains are 125 million years old - 15 million years older than previous discoveries by scientists. In addition to the skeleton, clear prints of fur and fabric were found. All this made it possible to reconstruct the appearance of the ancient creature. The animal that lived with dinosaurs was small - the size of a mouse: approximately 15 centimeters long and weighing about 30 grams. The structure of the limbs indicates that the creature could climb trees.
Common ancestor
All the predatory animals of Madagascar had one common ancestor that lived on the African continent before it came to the island 18 - 24 million years ago. He crossed the water barrier separating the island from the African coast.
Condylarthus - the ancestor of the hippopotamus
The first species of hippopotamus appeared 54 million years ago, during the Tertiary period of the Cenozoic era. Like other ungulates, the genus of hippopotamuses, or hippopotamuses (Hippopotamidae), descended from the ancient animal condylarthus.
From the life of ancient hippos
The fossilized bones of two ancient hippopotamuses were discovered in Norfolk, England. Their age is estimated at 450 thousand years (there is reason to believe that they may be 50-200 thousand years older). Hippos weighed six to seven tons—about half the weight of their modern descendants. They had unusual eyes - they served as periscopes after diving under water. In the ground they lay next to the remains of a hyena, a horse, fish and several rodents. Apparently the hippos died of natural causes, and their bones were gnawed by hyenas. All these animals inhabited these places at a time when the area around Norfolk was inhabited by a mixture of familiar plants and animals and the more exotic species now more commonly found on the African savannah. During the middle Pleistocene, the average temperature was about two degrees higher than it is now.
Cave bear (Arctodus simus) lived during the Pleistocene.
The primitive rodent was the size of a bull
In the semi-desert of Venezuela, they discovered the fossilized remains of a creature that, in their opinion, was the largest rodent in history. It weighed about 700 kg, reaching a length of 2.5 meters (excluding the tail). His remains were found back in 2000 in one of the swamps of Venezuela, 400 km west of the country's capital, Caracas. The formal name of this rodent is Phoberomys pattersoni, and unofficial - Goya. According to scientists, he lived 6-8 million years ago in swampy forests, when South America was isolated from the rest of the world. The herbivore Goya had a large tail that allowed it to balance on its hind legs to watch for predators. And the rodent had plenty of enemies: 10-meter crocodiles, marsupial cats, giant birds of prey. They were the ones who ultimately ruined him.
Primitive bull - Bos primigenus
May be considered the ancestor of modern cattle. It inhabited North Africa, Europe and Asia from the Pleistocene era until the 10th century AD. The bull was first domesticated 6,000 years ago; the last bulls became extinct in the 17th century AD. The bull was about 3 m long.
Very ancient cats
Ancient ancestors of wild cats existed 25 million years ago Proailurus, which formed the groups Noefelids, Pseudaelurus and Palaeofelids. From Noefelids came the saber-toothed tigers of the genus Smilodon (the most famous) and Homotherium. The predators Dinctus and Barbourifelis evolved from the Palaeofelids group. The Noefelids and Palaeofelids groups turned out to be dead ends and became extinct much earlier than 10 million years ago (the exception was the predatory cats Barbourifelis, which crossed this line).
The Pseudaelurus line of predators turned out to be promising; . Later, the genera of small cats and clouded leopard formed (4-3 million years ago). Modern species formed after the milestone of 1 million years ago.
Ancient finds are represented by single bones. The most fully represented ancient lynx, which lived 4 million years ago (Lynx issidorensis). It was larger than the modern one, had shorter front legs, and longer hind legs.
Were blood relatives 2 million years ago
The jaguar and leopard appear to have had a common ancestor that lived in central Europe over 2 million years ago. Later, the relatives separated: the leopard began to live in western Europe (1 million years ago), and the jaguar at the same time moved across the Bering Isthmus to North America. Jaguars of those times (Panthera onca augusta) were larger and longer-legged than their descendants. 750,000 years ago they began to decrease in size due to adaptation to local climatic conditions and diet. 100,000 years ago, the jaguar took on a form similar to that found today.
Saber-toothed tiger was on his own
Many people are mistaken in considering the prehistoric saber-toothed tiger to be the ancestor of modern tigers. They did not have common ancestors. Saber-toothed tigers became extinct before the ancestors of modern tigers appeared.
Saber-toothed tiger Smilodon hunted by pride
The saber-toothed tiger Smilodon was the size of an average lion, but its head was very large in proportion to its body. Its tail was short, which allows us to conclude that the saber-toothed tiger did not pursue its prey over long distances, limiting itself to pursuit over short distances. There is evidence that saber-toothed tigers were social animals and hunted in packs, similar to how a pride of lions hunts today.
The ancestors of tigers lived for 2 million years
Back in Central Asia and China and were widespread in both the west and east of the region from the Caspian Sea to the Far East and Primorye. 1 million years ago, giant tigers were still found in China. The features of this ancient tiger have been largely preserved by the North Chinese tiger. 250,000 years ago tigers shrank in size.
Ancestors of the cheetah
...lived in North America 2½ million years ago), and along with the giant cheetah Acinonyx studeri there was also a small species Acinonyx trumani (who lived 12,000 years ago). The ancestors of the modern cheetah Acinonyx pardinensis from Europe resembled its modern descendant, only surpassing it in size.
Of the panthers, the lion was the first
Of all the Panthera panthers, the first to appear was the lion, whose remains date back to 750,000 (West or East Africa). They were larger than modern ones and are considered gigantic. From there, lions spread to North Africa and Europe 250,000 years ago, with the cave lion (Panthera spelaea) and the Tuscany lion living in northern Italy and the Balkans. From Asia, lions moved to North America and formed a species (Panthera atrox), which spread all the way to Peru in the south. 100,000 years ago, the ancient lions became extinct, unable to adapt to changing climatic conditions.
This predator was found during the Pleistocene throughout North America (including Alaska), as well as in northern South America. It reached 3.5 m in length. It had sharp retractable claws and sharp teeth (shorter than those of other relatives). Other subspecies of the American lion are found in different parts of Africa and Western India.
Giant armadillo
The giant armadillo, which lived in the Pleistocene, had a body length of 4 m; lived in South America.
The rabbit that lived 55 million years ago
The fossilized remains of the world's oldest rabbit have been discovered in Mongolia. Gomphos elkema, lived 55 million years ago and is considered the most ancient ancestor of the modern rabbit. It is believed that it moved in much the same way as a modern rabbit, jumping with the help of elongated hind legs. Despite the obvious similarities, gomphos differed from modern rabbits in several ways. So, he had a very long tail, and some of his teeth looked more like the teeth of a squirrel than a rabbit.
Mesozoic badger ate dinosaurs
An animal that looks like a badger Repenomamus giganticus, was the size of a large dog, more than one meter in length. This is one of the largest mammals of the Mesozoic era. Its jaw is the size of a fox's jaw. Inside the skeleton of this animal, which lived about 130 million years ago in northern China, scientists have discovered a small skeleton of a baby dinosaur. Repenomamus giganticus probably ate dinosaurs. The ancient badger most likely tore its prey into pieces and swallowed large pieces. This theory is confirmed by the fact that a mammal, although it has sharp incisors, does not have molars, and its sharp teeth are intended for something completely different - for tearing into pieces and eating other animals. Although it could also feed on plants and insects.
The oldest primates
Unidentified monkey (May 1979), found at Padaung, Burma, estimated to be 40,000,000 years old; a lemur found in Madagascar, estimated to be 70,000,000 years old; a tarsier-like primate found in Indonesia, estimated to be 70,000,000 years old.
Giant sloth
The giant sloth Megatherium, which lived in the Pleistocene, had a body length of 7 m; he lived in South America, it was a terrestrial animal.
Beavers were the majority
Paleontologists have long believed that the mammals that lived alongside dinosaurs were animals similar to tiny shrews. Meanwhile, a fossil of a beaver-like mammal that lived 164 million years ago was found. The semi-aquatic mammal had a body length of about half a meter and a weight of 500 g, resembling partly a platypus, partly an otter and partly a beaver. This animal is the largest among its kind, and belongs to the Jurassic period (from 200 to 145 million years ago).
Primitive whales
Fossils of primitive whales, the zeuglodonts (“jugultooths”), are found in marine sediments of Africa, Europe, New Zealand, Antarctica and North America. Some of them were giants more than 20 m long.
Which mammal was the ancestor of modern cetaceans?
Too few fossil remains have been collected on this issue. Perhaps these were primitive creodont predators, maybe ungulates, but most likely ancient insectivores, from which cetaceans, carnivores, and ungulates branched off. Each of these concepts has its own arguments.
The ancestors of whales are ungulates
Some scientists consider the ancestors of cetaceans to be ungulates, since both have a multi-chambered stomach, multi-lobed kidneys, a two-horned uterus, a similar chemical composition of the blood and have common features in the structure of the reproductive system (placenta, structure and position of the penis, as well as the short duration of copulation), in the structure molecules of insulin and myoglobin and in terms of the precipitation reaction of blood proteins.
The ancestors of whales are predators
Other researchers are looking for the ancestors of cetaceans among creodont predators, guided by the structure of the skull and the characteristics of the dental system. Primitive cetaceans had heterodont (different in shape) teeth, sagittal and occipital crests and zygomatic processes of the skull, to some extent similar to those of creodont predators (hyenodonts).
The ancestors of whales are insectivores
Based on the analysis of fossil remains, modern paleontologists are more inclined to believe that ancient cetaceans were associated with very early placentals, that is, the oldest insectivores, and probably arose in the Late Cretaceous even before the branches of the orders of ungulates and carnivores branched off from them. 70 million years ago, the land-based ancestors of cetaceans moved into the water.
In 1959, British chemist John Kendrew discovered the structure of the muscle protein myoglobin and three years later received the Nobel Prize for this discovery. Half a century has passed, but this protein continues to be the subject of active study and sometimes reveals unexpected secrets. In a recent issue of the journal Science, biologists from the UK, USA and Canada talked about the features of myoglobin in cetaceans and how much time the ancestors of some modern mammals spent under water.
Myoglobin is an oxygen-binding protein that can be found in the muscles of all mammals, it gives the red color to muscles due to the iron it contains. Aquatic animals generally have more myoglobin than terrestrial animals. The sperm whale, for example, has one of the highest concentrations of this protein in its muscles; a lot of oxygen is stored there, and therefore it can not surface for an hour and a half.
As a new study has shown, it is not only thanks to the huge amount of myoglobin that aquatic mammals can stay under water for a long time. The fact is that the surfaces of these proteins carry an excess positive charge in these animals, due to which the molecules repel each other. This ensures that myoglobin does not stick together in such huge concentrations - otherwise it would turn into non-functional protein masses.
Similar well-charged myoglobins are present in the muscles of many aquatic animals - seals, walruses, beavers, muskrats. In those that spend less time in water, such as marsh shrews and star-nosed moles, myoglobins carry less charge than in aquatic mammals, but still more than in completely terrestrial mammals. High altitude and subterranean species are supposed to also need oxygen, but their myoglobins are not as highly charged as those of divers. Thus, positively charged myoglobin may serve as an indicator of aquatic lifestyle.
In addition, scientists were able to reconstruct the myoglobin molecules that were present in the ancestors of modern cetaceans. Knowing the structure of ancient myoglobins and their amino acid composition, one can estimate whether they were highly charged and how much time their owners could spend under water. It turned out that, for example, the pakicetus, the land-based ancestor of our whales that lived in Pakistan in the early Eocene, could afford to dive for no more than one and a half minutes. And the huge Late Eocene Basilosaurus dived for a maximum of 17 minutes. Fossils may hint that the animal led an aquatic lifestyle, but a new approach allows us to confirm this and even evaluate its diving abilities!
But biologists did not stop there - they restored myoglobins for the ancestors of some terrestrial animals. The result was surprising: modern elephants, hyraxes, moles and echidnas come from animals whose myoglobins were so charged! Interestingly, a recent paper suggested, based on fossil bones, that the ancestors of echidnas were swimmers. Other paleontologists have hypothesized about the aquatic ancestors of elephants and moles. Thus, myoglobin simply repeats the story that the bones began to tell.
We have no idea what the common ancestor of elephants, hyraxes, manatees and walruses looked like - we don’t have his bones. But there is a tiny molecule thanks to which we can confidently say that his muscles were adapted for diving.
Prepared from materials
Perhaps no animal in the world has been as offended as the elephant. These giant herbivores are the largest inhabitants of land, but? Almost nothing. Let's start with the fact that many mistakenly attribute the mammoth ancestor to elephants. But this is fundamentally wrong. Mammoths, mastodons and elephants are completely different families. And who is part of the elephant family? Let's figure it out.
1 Erytherium (60 million years ago)
The ancient ancestors of elephants were by no means such giants. And their trunk was only in outline. The very first pro-elephant that scientists discovered was erytherium. A completely small animal weighed up to 5 kilograms. It was possible to identify it only from individual fragments of the jaw, but this was enough, because it is the teeth that serve as a distinctive feature of proboscideans.
2 Phosphateria (57 million years ago)
Phosphateria is the next in line of the great-great-great of our gray giants. And it is already noticeably larger: from those fragments that have been preserved from the distant times of its existence, one can determine its height (no more than 30 cm) and weight (up to 17 kg). Scientists came to the conclusion that the animal was an omnivore.
3 Meriteria (35 million years ago)
A semi-aquatic animal that lived along the edges of reservoirs, Meriteria, which already had the beginnings of a trunk and long divided incisors, from which elephant tusks are then formed. And yes, they were larger - they weighed up to 250 kg, and reached 1.5 meters at the withers.
4 Bariteria (28 million years ago)
Up to three meters high, with a large skull and fairly developed fangs protruding from under the nose-trunk - if you met a barytherium, it would definitely scare you. Just look at the cost of the fangs, from which in the future tusks will develop, protruding from both the lower and upper jaws - obviously not only for obtaining food!
Around the same time, paleomastodons lived and died out. They were distinguished by obvious elephantine features: the structure of the body, skull, and the presence of tusks, which were no longer involved in chewing. On the lower jaw they were spade-shaped; scientists suspect that animals used them to obtain food in the upper layer of the earth.
6 Deinotherium (17 million years ago)
Strictly speaking, scientists are not sure whether Deinotherium was the ancestor of the elephant. It may well be that this is just a separate branch of evolution that has not survived to this day (but early people saw it, because Deinotherium disappeared 2 million years ago). Well, they were terrible animals: with tusks curved down, a huge trunk, a massive (up to 1.2 m) skull, up to 4.5 meters high!
7 Platybelodon (15 million years ago)
Another representative of the proboscis on the way to modernity acquired formidable tusks protruding forward and a powerful lower jaw with spade teeth. Platybelodons lived, as they now say, everywhere: in America, Eurasia and Africa.
8 Gomphotherium (3.6 million years ago)
Add sharp tusks on the lower jaw to the modern Indian cutie elephant, straighten those on the upper jaw, and you get a gomphotherium. And he won't look so friendly anymore. The tusks of gomphotheriums differed from modern elephants in that they had real tooth enamel!
9 Stegodons (2.6 million years ago)
Height 4 meters, length 8 meters + 3 meters of tusks make these extinct proboscis one of the largest ancestors of elephants. The last specimens were preserved on the island of Flores until 12 thousand years ago in a dwarf form, where hobbits (Homo Florentine) were discovered. The species is so close to modern ones that the elephants of Bardia Park still show features of Stegodons.
10 Primelphas (2.6 million years ago)
And now, finally, we come to the closest relative of elephants - in fact, this is its ancestor, primelfas, or “the first elephant.” It was he who gave rise to the branches of elephants, mammoths and mastodons. Meanwhile, it didn’t look much like a modern elephant, since it had four tusks, but what can you do, it’s still related.
Elephants are the largest living land animals. The distinctive features of these huge mammals are a long trunk and powerful tusks - the upper incisors modified during the process of evolution; No less striking features of these creatures are a large head with large ears and columnar legs. The order Proboscis, which includes elephants, also included the now extinct mastodons and mammoths.
Elephants and their ancestors detailed information and video:
Since the Eocene, the fossil ancestors of modern elephants inhabited almost all continents of the world, with the exception of Australia and Antarctica. The first proboscideans were relatively small aquatic animals weighing about 250 kg, whose incisors were then just beginning to enlarge, turning into tusks; Moreover, in the first species of proboscideans, tusks were located on both the lower and upper jaws.
One of the first proboscideans was Meriteria, the remains of which were first found on the shores of the ancient Lake Meris in Egypt. According to scientists, these were semi-aquatic animals that looked like hippos, and as their incisors increased, the trunk also extended, which became the main device for obtaining food.
Meriteria's front legs, ending in hooves rather than claws, adapted to running despite their ever-increasing body weight. The first proboscideans had elongated muzzles - like horses, for example - and only later did they develop a rounded head, making them look like modern elephants. During the Eocene, with its warm and dry climate, there was a land bridge across the Arctic, along which mammals migrated from continent to continent.
These were the ancestors of elephants - mammoths!
In the Miocene, many species already existed - representatives of the proboscis order, and all of them “showed off” a long trunk and powerful incisor tusks. Depending on the method of obtaining food, these animals were divided into species that fed on tree leaves, herbivorous species and omnivores. In dinoterias, tusks grew from the upper jaw and were directed downwards - with them the animals broke off branches; in gomphotheres, on the contrary, 4 tusks grew from the lower and upper jaws towards each other, which closed like tongs.
In proboscideans, which belonged to amoebelodons, flat tusks grew from the lower jaw and resembled scoops: they were easy to dig up and extract the roots and shoots of aquatic plants, and also, according to one of the theories of paleontologists, to strip bark from trees. All these species of proboscis migrated from Africa to Asia in the early Miocene, and two species - gomphotheres and amebelodons - moved through the Bering Strait first to North and then to South America, while leaf-eating Dinotherium never appeared in the Western Hemisphere.
In the Middle and Late Miocene, proboscideans differed greatly from each other and became the prototypes of a large number of species that lived in a wide variety of natural conditions. It was then that the first elephants appeared in Africa. Meanwhile, throughout the Miocene, the climate gradually became more severe; in the next era - in the Pleistocene - this led to the formation of powerful glaciers on almost half the area of the globe.
The deterioration of the climate forced proboscideans to adapt to new environmental conditions: for example, it was then that the first woolly mammoths appeared, which perfectly adapted to the harsh climate of the Ice Age, and more heat-loving species of proboscis migrated to the south. At the end of the Pleistocene, a global extinction of mammals began, which ended with the modern fauna - in particular the group of large mammals - consisting of significantly fewer individuals than before. At the same time, in the Pleistocene, all proboscideans became extinct, with the exception of the African elephant and its Indian counterpart.
Graceful and mysterious elephants...
Scientists still cannot answer unequivocally what caused this. Elephants are not only the largest of modern land animals, but also the longest-lived. Only two species of elephants have survived to this day: the African elephant and the Indian elephant. They are characterized by a massive body structure, a large head with drooping ears and a long, mobile trunk. An elephant's trunk is not a nose, as is sometimes thought, but an upper lip fused with the nose. Thanks to this organ, the multi-ton animal does not need to bend over to pick up food from the surface of the ground or from a high branch - the elephant copes with this by standing calmly in place.
The tip of an elephant's trunk is a very sensitive and mobile zone - a kind of grasping device that allows the animal not only to pick up fruits or stems, but also to deftly handle the smallest objects. Animals also drink and wash themselves with the trunk; They also use it to express their emotions while courting individuals of the opposite sex and, as the name of the organ itself indicates, elephants trumpet and make other sounds to them.
In a word, this is a truly universal device that has no equal in the animal world. It consists of 15 thousand muscles, and in order to masterfully control its trunk, a baby elephant has to spend a lot of time. Elephants also have a unique tooth structure. What are commonly called canines are actually incisors; on the lower jaw there are none at all, but from the upper jaw they grow in the form of tusks, which continue to grow throughout the animal’s life.
The tusks are covered with very hard enamel, which allows elephants to dig up tree roots, and during fights over the female, they serve as weapons. African elephants have tusks in both males and females. In female elephants they are much shorter, thinner and lighter, and the tusks of an old male African elephant can sometimes reach a length of 4 meters and weigh up to 220 kg. In female Indian elephants, the tusks are almost invisible from the outside and play the role of atavism in the body of this species; As for male Indian elephants, most often their tusks are much smaller than those of their African counterparts, and in Ceylon you can find a male without tusks at all.
The surface of elephants' massive molars is covered with numerous grooves, which allows the animals to chew hard parts of plants; teeth constantly grow from cavities in the back of the jaw and, moving forward, push out worn teeth.
Elephants communicate with each other not only by voice, but also by touch, smell, and appropriate postures. In addition to the roar that animals emit in moments of danger, elephants also communicate with a dull low-frequency grunt, which is clearly audible over a radius of several kilometers. These alarming sounds, once thought to be nothing more than stomach rumblings, alert members of the herd and indicate movement of the animal - in short, they are a form of communication between group members.
The largest species is the African elephant, which weighs up to 10 tons and reaches a height of 4 meters. Its massive body rests on columnar legs with rounded feet, at the base of which there is elastic fatty tissue that absorbs the weight of the animal’s body when walking.
Here's an elephant!!!
The skin of the African elephant is covered with sparse hairs. The animal's ears are large; penetrated by a dense network of blood vessels, they can remove excess heat from the body - or cool the head by fanning it like two fans. African elephants feed mainly on grass and less often on leaves and tree bark. This diet allowed them in the past to spread throughout almost the entire African continent south of the Sahara - in savannas, forests and bushes.
Today, the habitat of these animals is limited by the size of protected reserves, but even there, the threat to elephants from poachers cannot be completely eliminated. African elephants are herd animals, living in family groups of several to several dozen individuals, all subordinate to the oldest female. The Indian elephant is smaller than the African elephant and has significantly smaller ears and tusks.
The skin of these elephants has more hair and the top of the skull is more flattened. Indian elephants are primarily forest dwellers and their range is limited to India, Sri Lanka, the Malacca Peninsula and the island of Sumatra; The number of wild elephants in the wild there is very small, and the existing individuals are in danger of extinction.
Indian elephants live in family groups, which consist of several females with babies. Animals feed on grass, leaves, bark, wood pulp, bamboo shoots and fruits - in particular, they are very fond of wild figs. The Indian elephant is an animal with a calm character, easy to train and train, so they are often used as working animals, especially in logging.
A distinctive feature of elephants is that they have one of the most complex social organizations in the animal world. Females are characterized by constant and deep attachments in a herd, which is controlled by one leader. Elephants live in families or groups, in which there are up to several dozen females with offspring; Usually animals do not move away from their group to a distance exceeding 1 km.
Although the head of the herd is usually the oldest and wisest female elephant, it can also be the largest and strongest female in the group. Old female elephants gather a group around them and lead them on long journeys; it can be assumed that in this case the “elder” is surrounded not only by his daughters, but also by his granddaughters. During movement, the leaders are in front, and when returning they bring up the rear.
When the leader weakens and loses strength, a younger individual takes his place, but the sudden and unexpected death of the leader always ends tragically: the remaining animals circle in panic around the dead body, completely losing the ability to take any adequate actions.
Therefore, when it comes to preserving the elephant population, scientists propose relocating entire families to nature reserves and zoos, rather than individual animals. The cooperation and altruism that occurs in elephant family groups is amazing: babies of both sexes are treated equally, and each of them can suckle from any female in the group.
Elephants also care for any wounded or sick members of their herd.
We watch the video - “Are mammoths extinct???” after all, they were seen in Yakutia!!!
And now - the best film about the life of elephants from the BBC:
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It's no secret that the ancient world was home to unique animals that, unfortunately or fortunately, we were not destined to see. But the massive and huge remains testify to the greatness and strength of these mammals. Thus, in the past, animals adapted to their environment, and even individuals of the same species could change under its influence. Many are interested in such a unique mammal as the mastodon. This is an animal from the proboscis order, which in many ways resembled mammoths, but also had differences from them.
Characteristics of mastodons
Nowadays, no one thinks that perhaps the mastodon is the most striking ancestor of the ordinary elephant. The main common feature of the animals, of course, is the trunk, as well as their enormous size compared to other inhabitants of the wild. At the same time, it was found that mastodons were no larger than elephants, which we can see today in zoos or on TV.
Mastodons are considered extinct mammals. They had similar features to other representatives of the proboscis order, but there were also differences. The main one is that these large mammals had paired nipple-shaped tubercles on the chewing surface of their molars. And mammoths and elephants had transverse ridges on their molars, which were separated by cement.
Origin of the name "mastodon"
It is interesting that mastodon is translated from Greek as “nipple”, “tooth”. Consequently, the name of the animal comes from the structure of its teeth. Note that some individuals had tusks in the lower jaw area, which (according to scientists) were transformed from second incisors.
Mastodons were considered herbivores, unable to harm any neighbors in the big house called "Wildlife". The main dish of the proboscis order was also shrubs. However, if the mammals were frightened, they could simply kill a nearby animal with their enormous weight as a result of a sudden movement, without meaning to.
Male mastodons
Some scientists are convinced that mastodons were no taller than an ordinary elephant. Males of the proboscis order could reach three meters at the withers. It is worth noting that they preferred to live separately from the herd, that is, females and their cubs. Their sexual maturity occurred at the age of ten to fifteen. On average, mastodons lived sixty years.
It is also worth noting that there were different types of mammals (the American one was described above), and almost all of them were similar. But in fact, mastodons appeared in Africa. This was 35 million years ago. A little later they moved to Europe, Asia, North and South America.
Mastodon implies an influential figure, something big, for example, a mastodon of business, a mastodon of literature) unlike an elephant, had tusks in the upper and lower jaw. A little later, the appearance of the proboscis order changed, and the number of fangs decreased to one pair. Scientists have found that about 10 thousand years ago. There were about twenty species of them.
One of the versions of the extinction of mastodons was the infection of mammals with tuberculosis. But after their disappearance they did not remain forgotten. Scientists are constantly studying the bones and tusks of mastodons, making new discoveries and delving into the history of unique mammals. In 2007, the animal's DNA was examined using its teeth. The study proved that the remains of the mastodon were from 50 to 130 thousand years old.
Thus, the mastodon is a unique and not fully studied large mammal that walked the earth tens of thousands of years ago and was considered one of the most benevolent animals. It has been proven that over time they began to eat grass, preferring it to tree leaves and shrubs, although their massive tusks made them excellent at hunting.
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