“Ancient animals have raised some interesting questions about the ancestry of the elephant. An animal called Moeritherium has given some clues that the elephant’s original ancestor could have been a lot more complex than anyone thought.” - Digital Journal
“Chemical signatures from fossil teeth reveal that at least one species of proboscidean, an ancient elephant relative, lived in an aquatic environment.” - National Geographic News
“Ironically, recent molecular tests showed that they are more closely related to elephants than to shrews, being members of a mammal group called Afrotheria, which evolved in Africa more than 100 million years ago.” - AFP
“The tooth of a mastodon buried beneath Alaska’s permafrost for many thousands of years is yielding surprising clues about the history of elephants—and humans.” - National Geographic News
“Using DNA extracted from a woolly mammoth specimen recovered from permafrost in Siberia, a team of scientists from Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States determined the sequence of 5,024 base pairs of mitochondrial DNA. Although that represents only about a third of the animal�s total mitochondrial DNA, it was far beyond the previous record of 1,000 base pairs sequenced for a Pleistocene animal.” - The Columbus Dispatch
“Approximately 10,000 years after the last mammoths used to roam across the North American and Eurasian spaces, they still remain an exciting subject of inquiry for researchers. Mammoths and elephants belong to the most ancient group of mammals, therefore, when studying mammoths the researchers reveal secrets of evolutionary origin of contemporary species. Discussions continue about genetic kinship of mammoths and contemporary elephants.” - Innovations Report
“An example of such selection, Baum said, can be seen in the increased number of elephants born without tusks in Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya. According to scientists, this phenomenon has arisen due to rampant ivory poaching in Africa.” - The Badger Herald
