Evolution Diary

Scientists have discovered the missing link between ancient and modern elephants.

The discovery of a 27 million-year old fossil belonging to a “pig-sized, tusked creature” suggests that “mastodons and the ancestors of elephants originated in Africa, in contrast to mammals such as rhinos, giraffes and antelopes, which had their origins in Europe and Asia and migrated into Africa,” according to a news release from the University of Michigan. The finding also pushes back the origin of elephants and mastodons five million years farther than previously thought.

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