Mammuthus africanavus
(African ancestor mammoth)
Name:
Mammuthus africanavus.
Phonetic: Mam-mu-fus af-ree-can-a-vus.
Named By: Camille Arambourg - 1952.
Classification: Chordata, Mammalia,
Proboscidea, Elephantidae.
Species: M. africanavus.
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: Unavailable, though smaller than later
mammoths.
Known locations: Across North Africa.
Time period: Piacenzian of the Pliocene.
Fossil representation: Many specimens.
M. africanavus was an African mammoth that seems to have lived after M. subplanifrons and is important to researchers of elephants and mammoths because it is considered to be the ancestor of M. meridionalis (Southern mammoth). In turn the descendants of M. meridionalis would go onto to produce some of the more famous mammoth species such as M. trogontherii (Steppe mammoth) and M. primigenius (Woolly mammoth). Critics to this theory however cite that the tusks diverged more widely at the ends which suggests that M. africanavus might just be an evolutionary offshoot to the species that was ‘the’ ancestor.
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