''Mammuthus meridionalis'', or the southern mammoth, is an extinct species of mammoth native to

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

and

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes the former ...

from the Gelasian stage of the Early

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the '' Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed ...

, living from 2.5–0.8

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Taxonomy

The taxonomy of extinct elephants was complicated by the early 20th century, and in 1942, Henry Fairfield Osborn's posthumous monograph on the

Proboscidea The Proboscidea (; , ) are a taxonomic order of afrotherian mammals containing one living family ( Elephantidae) and several extinct families. First described by J. Illiger in 1811, it encompasses the elephants and their close relatives. Fr ...

was published, wherein he used various taxon names that had previously been proposed for mammoth species, including replacing ''Mammuthus'' with ''Mammonteus'', as he believed the former name to be invalidly published. Mammoth taxonomy was simplified by various researchers from the 1970s onwards, all species were retained in the genus ''Mammuthus'', and many proposed differences between species were instead interpreted as intraspecific variation. The name ''Archidiskodon meridionalis'' is retained by some Russian researchers.

Evolution

The earliest known members of Proboscidea, the clade which contains modern elephants, existed about 55 million years ago around the Tethys Sea. The closest known relatives of the Proboscidea are the sirenians (dugongs and manatees) and the hyraxes (an order of small, herbivorous mammals). The family Elephantidae existed six million years ago in Africa and includes the modern elephants and the mammoths. Among many now extinct clades, the mastodon (''Mammut'') is only a distant relative of the mammoths, and part of the separate family Mammutidae, which diverged 25 million years before the mammoths evolved. The following

cladogram A cladogram (from Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an evolutionary tree because it does not show how ancestors are related to ...

shows the placement of the genus ''Mammuthus'' among other proboscideans, based on characteristics of the

hyoid bone The hyoid bone (lingual bone or tongue-bone) () is a horseshoe-shaped bone situated in the anterior midline of the neck between the chin and the thyroid cartilage. At rest, it lies between the base of the mandible and the third cervical verteb ...

in the neck: Southern Mammoth Mammuthus meridionalis

Since many remains of each species of mammoth are known from several localities, it is possible to reconstruct the evolutionary history of the genus through morphological studies. Mammoth species can be identified from the number of enamel ridges (or lamellar plates) on their molars: primitive species had few ridges, and the number increased gradually as new species evolved to feed on more abrasive food items. The crowns of the teeth became deeper in height and the skulls became taller to accommodate this. At the same time, the skulls became shorter from front to back to minimise the weight of the head.

The first known members of the genus ''Mammuthus'' are the African species '' M. subplanifrons'' from the

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58M. africanavus'' from the

. The former is thought to be the ancestor of later forms. Mammoths entered Europe around 3 million years ago. The earliest European mammoth has been named '' M. rumanus''; it spread across Europe and China. Only its molars are known, which show that it had 8–10 enamel ridges. A population evolved 12–14 ridges, splitting off from and replacing the earlier type, becoming ''M. meridionalis'' about 2–1.7 million years ago. In turn, this species was replaced by the steppe mammoth (''M. trogontherii'') with 18–20 ridges, which evolved in eastern Asia around 2–1.5 million years ago. The Columbian mammoth evolved from a population of ''M. trogontherii'' that had crossed the Bering Strait and entered North America about 1.5 million years ago; it retained a similar number of molar ridges. Steppe mammoths replaced southern mammoths in Europe in a diachronous mosaic pattern between 1 and 0.8-0.7 million years ago. Mammoths derived from ''M. trogontherii'' evolved molars with 26 ridges 400,000 years ago in Siberia and became the woolly mammoth (''M. primigenius''). A 2015 study of mammoth molars confirmed that ''M. columbi'' evolved from Eurasian ''M. trogontherii'', not ''M. meridionalis'' as had been suggested earlier. This was confirmed by a 2016 a genetic study of North American mammoth specimens.

Description

With a shoulder height of about and an estimated weight of , ''M. meridionalis'' is one of the largest

proboscidea The Proboscidea (; , ) are a taxonomic order of afrotherian mammals containing one living family ( Elephantidae) and several extinct families. First described by J. Illiger in 1811, it encompasses the elephants and their close relatives. Fr ...

ns to have ever lived, along with other larger species of mammoth, and the earlier ''

Deinotherium ''Deinotherium'' was a large elephant-like proboscidean that appeared in the Middle Miocene and survived until the Early Pleistocene. Although superficially resembling modern elephants, they had notably more flexible necks, limbs adapted to a mo ...

''. Another estimate gives a shoulder height of and a weight of .

Cranium The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, ...

fossils A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

of the ''M. meridionalis'' found in

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show the length of the

skull The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, t ...

to be 1.25 - 1.54 meters long, with tusk lengths of 72 - 85 centimetres. It had robust twisted tusks, common of mammoths. Its molars had low crowns and a small number of thick enamel ridges, adapted to a woodland diet of leaves and shrubs; this indicates it lived on a relatively warm climate, which makes it more probable that it lacked dense fur. Mammuthus meridionalis reconstruction 2

Distribution and habitat

Fossilized plants found with the remains show that ''M. meridionalis'' was living in a time of mild climate, generally as warm or slightly warmer than Europe experiences today. Deciduous mixed wood provided its habitat and food, which consisted mostly of tree-browse: oak,

ash Ash or ashes are the solid remnants of fires. Specifically, ''ash'' refers to all non-aqueous, non- gaseous residues that remain after something burns. In analytical chemistry, to analyse the mineral and metal content of chemical samples, ash ...

beech Beech (''Fagus'') is a genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to temperate Europe, Asia, and North America. Recent classifications recognize 10 to 13 species in two distinct subgenera, ''Engleriana'' and ''Fagus''. The ''Engl ...

and other familiar European trees, as well as some that are now exotic to the region, such as hemlock, wing nut and

hickory Hickory is a common name for trees composing the genus ''Carya'', which includes around 18 species. Five or six species are native to China, Indochina, and India (Assam), as many as twelve are native to the United States, four are found in M ...

. Complete skeletons are in Stavropol State Museum in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eigh ...

,in L'Aquila

National Museum A national museum is a museum maintained and funded by a national government. In many countries it denotes a museum run by the central government, while other museums are run by regional or local governments. In other countries a much greater numbe ...

and in Firenze at the Museo di Storia Naturale di Firenze in

. Further east, discoveries at

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(

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

) and

Dmanisi Dmanisi ( ka, დმანისი, tr, , az, Başkeçid) is a town and archaeological site in the Kvemo Kartli region of Georgia approximately 93 km southwest of the nation’s capital Tbilisi in the river valley of Mashavera. The homini ...

(

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to t ...

) show the early mammoth living in a partially open habitat with grassy areas, though subsisting on scattered trees and shrubs. The microscopic scratches and pits in the dental enamel on the

of ''M. meridionalis'' suggest that the species was a browser, feeding on any foliage of high-growing plants.

References

Bibliography

External links

{{Taxonbar, from=Q550390 Pleistocene mammals of Asia Mammoths Pleistocene proboscideans