Platybelodon

Platybelodon danovi · Platybelodon was an extinct, distant relative of elephants with a spoon-shaped lower jaw, whose fossils come from middle Miocene rocks in Asia and the Caucasus.

It lived about 15 to 10 million years ago.

Platybelodon
Photo: Popolon, CC BY-SA 4.0
Platybelodon
Photo: Didier Descouens, CC BY-SA 4.0
Platybelodon
Photo: Didier Descouens, CC BY-SA 3.0

Taxonomy

KingdomAnimalia
PhylumChordata
ClassMammalia
OrderProboscidea
FamilyAmebelodontidae
GenusPlatybelodon
SpeciesPlatybelodon danovi

Where its fossils were found

Asia, mostly China (Ningxia, Gansu, Shaanxi), and the north Caucasus of Russia.

Fun facts

  • Scientists first thought Platybelodon scooped up water plants, but tooth wear suggests it used its lower tusks to strip bark from trees.
  • Its flat lower tusks were up to 11 cm wide, wider than those of other amebelodont genera.
  • Platybelodon may have grabbed branches with its trunk and rubbed them against its lower teeth, cutting them off a tree like a scythe.
  • Experts once believed Platybelodon had no trunk and a hippopotamus-like upper lip, but it actually had a fairly large trunk.

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Facts and taxonomy adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).