Phanagoroloxodon
Temporal range:
Drawing of the skull in various views
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Proboscidea
Family: Elephantidae
Genus: †Phanagoroloxodon
Garutt, 1957
Species:
†P. mammontoides
Binomial name
†Phanagoroloxodon mammontoides
Garutt, 1957
Skull on display

Phanagoroloxodon is an extinct genus of elephant. It is known from one species Phanagoroloxodon mammontoidies described from a partial skull found on the banks of the Psekups river in the northwestern Caucasus of Russia, of probable Late Pliocene-Early Pleistocene age.[1][2] Phanagoroloxodon has been suggested to share a close common ancestry with Elephas (which contains the living Asian elephant), as well as mammoths (genus Mammuthus), combining characteristics of both genera.[2][3] Like the Asian elephant, the top of the skull has a groove running along the midline, while the tusks are suggested to be twisted, similar to those of mammoths.[2] A 2020 PhD thesis by Steven Zhang suggested that Elephas recki brumpti from the Pliocene of East Africa should be subsumed into the species Elephas planifrons, known from the Late Pliocene-Early Pleistocene of the Indian subcontinent, and that this species should be placed as a second species of Phanagoroloxodon. However, these suggestions were rejected by Sanders (2023).[4]

References

  1. ↑ GARUTT, W.E., 1957. On a new fossil elephant Phanagoroloxodon mammontoides gen. et sp. nov. from the Caucasus. Reports of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 112,2: 333-335. (In Russian)
  2. 1 2 3 W.E. Garutt. (1995). The phanagorian elephant Phanagoroloxodon mammontoides Garutt, 1957 from the Pliocene of the north-western Caucasus. Cranium, 12(2), 87–92.
  3. ↑ H. Zhang Elephas recki: the wastebasket? 66th Symposium of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy, Manchester. (2018)
  4. ↑ Sanders, William J. (2023-07-07). Evolution and Fossil Record of African Proboscidea (1 ed.). Boca Raton: CRC Press. pp. 267–293. doi:10.1201/b20016. ISBN 978-1-315-11891-8.
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