Stegodon
| Stegodon | |
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| Stegodon skeleton at the Gansu Provincial Museum. | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | |
| Class: | |
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| Family: | Stegodontidae
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| Subfamily: | Stegodontinae
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| Genus: | Stegodon
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Stegodon is a genus of extinct elephant. They lived from the late Miocene to the late Pleistocene.
Fossils are found in Asian and African strata dating from the late Miocene. They lived in large parts of Asia, East and Central Africa and North America during the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs.[1][2]
Some Stegodon species were among the largest of all elephants. Some adults were 13 feet (4 m) high at the shoulder and 26 feet (8 m) long, not including 10 feet (3m) long nearly straight tusks. A few were much smaller, living on islands.
Browser rather than grazer[change | change source]
The teeth of Stegodon show that it was mainly a browser. As time passed, grassland increasingly took the place of forests, and browsers were at something of a disadvantage. No doubt, they were also hunted by early man.
References[change | change source]
- ↑ "PaleoBiology Database: Stegodon, basic info". Archived from the original on 2012-10-13. Retrieved 2015-12-05.
- ↑ Saegusa H. 2001. Comparisons of Stegodon and Elephantid abundances in the late Pleistocene of southern China. In The World of Elephants -- Second International Congress (Rome, 2001). 345-349.
