Elephantimorpha
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Elephantimorpha is a group that contains the
elephants Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae ...
as well as their extinct relatives, the
gomphotheres Gomphotheres are any members of the diverse, extinct taxonomic family Gomphotheriidae. Gomphotheres were elephant-like proboscideans, but do not belong to the family Elephantidae. They were widespread across Afro-Eurasia and North America during ...
and
stegodontids Stegodontidae is an extinct family of proboscideans from Africa and Asia (with a single occurrence in Europe) from the Miocene (15.97  mya) to the Late Pleistocene, with some studies suggesting that some survived into the Holocene in Ch ...
. 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 relationships among elephantimorphs, based on
hyoid 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 vertebra. ...
characteristics:


References

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