Over the last 60 million years, proboscideans - the order of animals which includes elephants - changed dramatically as they expanded geographically and adjusted to various climate changes. New ...

Research team of the University of Tübingen and the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment investigates fossils of eight early relatives of elephants from the fossil-rich site ...

The fossil record richly illustrates the origin of morphological adaptation through time. However, our understanding of the selective forces responsible in a given case, and the role of behaviour in ...

A new study shows that the cheek teeth of proboscideans (elephants and their ancient relatives) evolved in response to dietary changes due to vegetation changes and climate change in East Africa ...

Our early ancestors lived amidst a richer community of proboscideans than we see today. A new study, published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, challenges claims that early human hunters slaughtered ...

The proboscidean fossil record in China is characterized by a high evolutionary rate, wide spatio-temporal distribution and richness of environmental indicators. Therefore, proboscideans make ...

The elephants we know and love today may be the ultimate survivors. While there are only three species of elephants now – all of which are endangered and can be found across Africa and Asia – they ...

Not so long ago, the trumpeting of elephants could be heard across a great deal of our planet. Wrinkly-skinned giants did not only inhabit Africa and southern Asia, but roamed from prehistoric ...

Their scruffy beards weren't ironic, but there are reasons mammoths and mastodons could have been the hipsters of the Ice Age. According to new research, the famously fuzzy relatives of elephants ...

Mammoths and mastodons – both ancient relatives of elephants – were driven to extinction by climate change rather than overhunting by humans, new research suggests. The study challenges claims that ...

Elephants and their forebears were pushed into wipeout by waves of extreme global environmental change, rather than overhunting by early humans, according to new research. The study, published today ...