The African mammoth, ''Mammuthus africanavus'' (literally, "African ancestor mammoth"), is the second oldest mammoth species, having first appeared around 3 million years ago during the late Pliocene, with a last appearance around 1.65 million years ago in the

early Pleistocene The Early Pleistocene is an unofficial sub-epoch in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, being the earliest division of the Pleistocene Epoch within the ongoing Quaternary Period. It is currently estimated to span the time ...

. Its fossils have been found in

Chad Chad (; ar, تشاد , ; french: Tchad, ), officially the Republic of Chad, '; ) is a landlocked country at the crossroads of North and Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic ...

, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia. It was relatively small and is seen as the direct ancestor of '' M. meriodionalis'', although its tusk diverged more widely from its skull than later species of mammoth, which might indicate that it was an evolutionary dead end.

References

Mammoths Pliocene proboscideans Pliocene mammals of Africa {{paleo-proboscidean-stub