Our website is made possible by displaying online advertisements to our visitors.
Please consider supporting us by disabling your ad blocker.
Proboscidea
| Proboscidea Temporal range: late Palaeocene – Recent
| |
|---|---|
| |
| African elephant | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | |
| Phylum: | |
| Class: | |
| Infraclass: | |
| Superorder: | |
| Order: | Proboscidea Illiger, 1811
|
Proboscidea (meaning "trunked beast") is an order containing only one familiy of living animals, Elephantidae, the elephants, with three living species (African forest elephant, African bush elephant, and Asian elephant).[1]
During the period of the last ice age there were more species. They included a number of species of the elephant-like mammoths and mastodons.
The oldest proboscidean dates from the early Palaeogene period, over 50 million years ago. The evolution of the elephant-like animals mainly concerned the proportions of the cranium and jaw and the shape of the tusks and molar teeth. These were adaptations to various kinds of vegetable. food
- ↑ ↑ Shoshani, Jeheskel; Wilson, Don E. and Reeder, DeeAnn M. (eds) 2005. Mammal species of the world. 3rd ed, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2 vols, pp. 90-91. ISBN 978-0-8018-8221-0
Previous Page Next Page
