The Oddest Elephant Relatives on the planet

Did Manatees Evolve From Elephants?. Manatees did not evolve from elephants, although these two types of mammals did both descend from a group of common ancestors known as Tethytheria. These early hoofed mammals lived during the early Cenozoic age and were small, rodent-like creatures that lived on land. Over time, some of these …

Evolutionary Relationships – Manatees did not evolve from elephants, although these two types of mammals did both descend from a group of common ancestors known as Tethytheria. These early hoofed mammals lived during the early Cenozoic age and were small, rodent-like creatures that lived on land. Over time, some of these creatures evolved into the land-dwelling elephants we know today, while others evolved into sea-dwelling manatees. Manatee and Elephant EvolutionSirenians, the ancestors of manatees, first emerged sometime during the Eocene Epoch of the Cenozoic Era, some 55 million years ago. These sea-dwelling creatures lived in the Tethys Sea, located between Africa and Eurasia, according to the Natural History Collections of the University of Edinburgh website. Around the same time the Sirenians emerged, the land-dwelling Proboscideans developed from the Tethytheria as well. Manatees belong to the order called Sirenia, and are direct descendants from the Sirenians. Elephants, on the other hand, are direct descendants of the Proboscideans, making these two groups closely, but not directly, related.


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The Most Surprising Elephant Relatives on Earth

You’d never know some of these creatures are related to the biggest beasts on land.

Species: Pezosiren – About 66 million years back, an asteroid collided with Earth, eliminating the dinosaurs and providing several small terrestrial herbivores a significant transformative chance. With dinosaurs (except wild birds) from the picture, an untold quantity of niches were all of a sudden available. Descendants of individuals mammals, which fit in with a taxonomic group scientists call Paenungulata, spread around the globe and become probably the most well-known mammals — living and extinct — which have ever roamed Earth or swum its seas, Advait Jukar, a paleobiologist in the National Museum of Natural History in the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., told Live Science. The favourite may be the elephant. Though a few of these strange creatures seem like the large, beloved monsters, you would be shocked to understand that other medication is also associated with the terrestrial giants nowadays. In the ocean cow towards the hyrax, listed here are seven surprising, lengthy-lost relatives of tigers. Species: Pezosiren(Image credit: Getty)Status: Went extinct 40 million years agoLast common ancestor to tigers: 60 million years agoThis four-legged mammal was carefully associated with manatees, dugongs and also the lately extinct Steller’s ocean cow, but fossils indicate the pezosiren wasn’t too suitable for marine existence since it’s relatives were.

Genetic study shakes up the elephant family tree

New research reveals that a species of giant elephant that lived 1.5 million to 100,000 years ago — ranging across Eurasia before it went extinct — is more closely related to today’s African forest elephant than the forest elephant is to its nearest living relative, the African savanna elephant. Understanding elephant evolution is key to protecting present-day elephants from extinction, researchers say.

“We have had great genetic evidence because the year 2001 that forest and savanna tigers in Africa are a couple of different species, but it is been tough to convince conservation agencies that this is the situation,” Roca stated. “Using the new genetic evidence from Palaeoloxodon, it might be nearly impossible to reason that the tigers now residing in Africa belong one species. “

“Up until now, genetic research on bones that are hundreds of thousands of years old has almost exclusively relied on fossils collected in permafrost,” said Matthias Meyer, a researcher from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and first author of the paper. “It is encouraging to see that recent advances in laboratory methods are now enabling us to recover very old DNA sequences also from warmer places, where DNA degrades at a much faster rate.

Hundreds of elephants found dead in Botswana

Some 350 elephant carcasses have been spotted in Botswana’s Okavango Delta since May.

More on this story – Mystery surrounds the “completely unparalleled” deaths of countless tigers in Botswana during the last two several weeks. Dr Niall McCann stated colleagues within the southern African country had spotted greater than 350 elephant carcasses within the Okavango Delta since the beginning of May. Nobody knows why the creatures are dying, with lab results on samples still days away, based on the government. Botswana hosts another of Africa’s declining elephant population. Warning: Many people might find the next images upsettingDr McCann, from the United kingdom-based charitable organization Park Save, told the BBC local conservationists first alerted the federal government at the begining of May, once they began a flight ticket within the delta. “They spotted 169 inside a three-hour flight,” he stated. “So that you can see and count that lots of inside a three-hour flight was remarkable. “Per month later, further investigations identified a lot more carcasses, getting the entire to in excess of 350. “”This really is totally unparalleled when it comes to figures of tigers dying in one event unrelated to drought,” he added.

Hyrax

Temporal range: Eocene–Recent 55.8–0 Ma PreꞒꞒOSDCPTJKPgN.

Bjrnhag, G. Becker, G. Buchholz, C. W. von Engelhardt, W. . “The gastrointestinal tract from the rock hyrax (Procavia habessinica). 1. Morphology and motility patterns from the tract”. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology A. 109 (3): 649–53. doi:10. 1016/0300-9629(94)90205-4. PMID 8529006.

Five extant species are recognised: the rock hyrax (Procavia capensis) and the yellow-spotted rock hyrax (Heterohyrax brucei), which both live on rock outcrops, including cliffs in Ethiopia(3) and isolated granite outcrops called koppies in southern Africa;(4) the western tree hyrax (Dendrohyrax dorsalis), southern tree hyrax (D. arboreus), and eastern tree hyrax (D. validus). Their distribution is limited to Africa, except for P. capensis, which is also found in the Middle East.


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Deinotherium

Deinotherium – The Terrible Beast – Facts and Information about the prehistoric giant elephant.

D. bozasi is really a Late Miocene to Early Pleistocene species from Africa. It’s the last from the Deinotheres. Some other Deinotherium were extinct through the finish from the Pliocene, fossils in Kenya show D. bozasi resided in Africa before the early Pleistocene. Early hominids, for example Australopithecus most likely interacted with this particular animal.

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Deinotheriums were large elephant like animals that ranged from Africa to Europe and Central Asia. They lived mainly in the Miocene and Pliocene, although one genus survived into the Early Pleistocene. Deinotheriums are some of the larger elephants to exist; they were slightly larger than African elephants today. These animals were more basal than modern elephants and their appearance was a little different. They had longer legs, a flat forehead, a short trunk, and, most notably, odd inward curving tusks in their lower jaws. It’s thought that Deinotheriums lived in forested environments and used their downward curving tusks to strip tree branches of vegetation.

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Regardless of the 1989 worldwide trade ban on ivory sales, the illegal and legal hunting and poaching of tigers for his or her tusks, hide, meat, and fur happen to be a sizable cause of the decline of tigers, particularly in Africa. Asian tigers will also be poached, and also, since only males have tusks, this results in a lack of males within the breeding population and too little genetic diversity.

Elephants are gentle creatures that captivate our hearts and imaginations. There are two extant elephant species: African elephants and Asian elephants. However, some genetic studies suggest that the African elephant is two separate species: savanna elephants and forest elephants. All elephants are at risk. Asian elephants roam forests and grasslands in India and Southeast Asia. The African elephant population migrates across dense forests and arid deserts in 37 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

The rise and fall of elephant ancestors – Elephant ancestors diversified widely thanks to climate change and new habitats.

Steven says, ‘Some of the most significant clues for gauging the epic proboscidean story were found right here in the collections of the Natural History Museum, one of the very few institutions in the world housing fossil specimens representative of all eight evolutionary directions. ‘

Strange Relatives: Little Kiwi, Giant Elephant Bird Linked by DNA

Scientists have identified the closest relative of New Zealand’s famed kiwi, a shy chicken-sized flightless bird.

They could be the odd handful of the bird world. Scientists on Thursday identified the nearest relative of recent Zealand’s famous kiwi, a shy chicken-sized flightless bird, because the elephant bird of Madagascar, a flightless giant which was 10 ft (3 meters) tall and went extinct a couple of centuries ago. The surprising findings, according to DNA obtained from the bones of two elephant bird species, pressure a re-look at the ancestry from the number of flightless wild birds known as ratites that live in the earth’s southern continents, they added. Ancient DNA has revealed a unique set of nearest relatives: New Zealand’s flightless, roughly chicken-sized kiwi species (skeleton of adult Apteryx australis proven) and Madacascar’s huge elephant bird (egg of Aepyornis maximus proven). KYLE DAVIS AND PAUL SCOFIELD / CANTERBURY MUSEUMThe group, which boasts a few of the world’s largest wild birds, includes emus and cassowaries around australia, rheas in South Usa, ostriches in Africa and kiwis in Nz. Ratites which have disappeared in recent centuries range from the moa of recent Zealand and also the elephant bird.

New sengi species is related to an elephant, but small as a mouse

The Etendeka round-eared sengi or Macroscelides micus, is the smallest of 19 elephant shrews and is found in the Namibian desert.

It might seem like a mouse, but it’s really associated with an elephant. Satisfy the adorable Etendeka round-eared sengi, a recently discovered types of “elephant shrew” that resides in a remote a part of Namibia. Known formally as Macroscelides micus, this diminutive sengi sports pinkish skin underneath its hair along with a lengthy, almost trunk-like “proboscis” it may stick its little tongue several millimeters beyond its lengthy snout. Recently described within the Journal of Mammalogy, it’s the tiniest from the 19 known sengi species, stretching about 7. 3 inches lengthy and weighing under an oz. The sengi are recognized to mate for existence, and scientists study their monogamous relationships. They’re a part of a clade of mammals including tigers, aardvarks and manatees known as Afrotheria, an assorted number of creatures which most likely came about when Africa was something of the island to itself. The species was initially discovered among other elephant shrew samples collected from southern Africa and stored in the California Academy of Sciences in Bay Area.

Woolly Mammoth DNA Reveals Elephant Family Tree

The extinct animals are more closely related to Asian rather than to African elephants.

AnimalsVideoThe extinct creatures tend to be more carefully associated with Asian instead of to African tigers. Geneticists have sketched the woolly mammoth’s family tree using ancient DNA found preserved in Siberia. The extinct monsters tend to be more carefully associated with Asian tigers rather than African tigers, they found, and also the three species diverged inside a surprisingly short time. Michael Hofreiter from the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany, and the colleagues used bone tissue to rebuild the mitochondrial genome from the mammoth. Mitochondrial DNA is passed from mother to offspring, that makes it helpful for hearing aid technology lineage of the species. The DNA says woolly mammoths had more genetic similarities to modern Asian tigers rather than the African species, though not by much, Hofreiter’s team reports. The DNA also demonstrated that elephant species split from one another more rapidly than have been thought. Modern tigers and woolly mammoths share a typical ancestor that split up into separate species about six million years back, the research reports.

The Hyrax, the Elephant and the Dugong

Apes aren’t necessarily the best models for explaining humans.

The hyrax is fairly omnivorous, eating grass, leaves, insects, fruit, birds’ eggs, lizards, and grubs. The elephant is just herbivorous, preferring to browse around the bark, leaves and fruit of trees, but equipped to handle grass should there be little else. The dugong eats little aside from ocean grass, so it uproots in the ocean bed using its snout.

Looking at these details only, you could be pardoned for concluding that hyraxes were rodents related to prairie dogs, with which they share the behavior of posting sentinels to warn of predators. You might suppose that elephants were closely related to other large tropical herbivores with thick skins and a penchant for wallowing in swamps, such as hippopotami. And it might seem reasonable to guess that the dugong had its closest connections with other marine mammals, sea-lions or dolphins.


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[FAQ]

What is the closest living relative to the elephant?

Hyraxes Hyraxes are sometimes described as being the closest living relative of the elephant, although whether this is so is disputed. Recent morphological- and molecular-based classifications reveal the sirenians to be the closest living relatives of elephants.

What is the earliest ancestor of an elephant?

Eritherium is the smallest, oldest and most primitive elephant ancestor discovered. It grew to about 60cm, fed on wet vegetation and lived during the Paleocene epoch in what is now Morocco.

Who are the ancestors of elephants?

Living elephants and their extinct relatives share a common ancestor with manatees, dugongs and the other aquatic mammals known as sirenians. Moeritherium lived some 37 million years ago, many millions of years after the genetic lineages of elephants and sirenians split, Liu said.

What are elephants most closely related to?

Their closest extant relatives are the sirenians (dugongs and manatees) and the hyraxes, with which they share the clade Paenungulata within the superorder Afrotheria. Elephants and sirenians are further grouped in the clade Tethytheria.

Are mammoth and elephants related?

Species: Woolly mammoth As members of the family Elephantidae, woolly mammoths were themselves elephants. Their last common ancestor with modern-day elephants lived somewhere in Africa about 6 million years ago.

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