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BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES / EVOLUTION
A proboscidean from the late Oligocene of Eritrea, a "missing link" between early Elephantiformes and Elephantimorpha, and biogeographic implications

Jeheskel Shoshani^*,,, Robert C. Walter, Michael Abraha^¶, Seife Berhe^||, Pascal Tassy^**, William J. Sanders, Gary H. Marchant, Yosief Libsekal, Tesfalidet Ghirmai^¶, and Dietmar Zinner^,

*Department of Biology, University of Asmara, P.O. Box 1220, Asmara, Eritrea; Elephant Research Foundation, 106 East Hickory Grove Road, Bloomfield Hills, MI 48304; Department of Earth and Environment, Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA 17604-3003; ^¶Eritrean Geological Survey, Department of Mines, Ministry of Mines and Energy, P.O. Box 272, Asmara, Eritrea; ^||Global Resources, P.O. Box 4588, Asmara, Eritrea; **USM203/Unité Mixte de Recherche 5143 Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Paléobiodiversité, CP 38, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, 57 Rue Cuvier, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France; Museum of Paleontology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109; Department of Archeology, National Museum of Eritrea, P.O. Box 1220, Asmara, Eritrea; and Department of Cognitive Ethology, Deutsches Primatenzentrum, Kellnerweg 4, D-37077 Göttingen, Germany

Edited by David B. Wake, University of California, Berkeley, CA, and approved September 9, 2006 (received for review May 5, 2006)

We report on a late Oligocene proboscidean species from Eritrea, dated to 26.8 ± 1.5 Mya. This "missing link" between early elephantiformes and Elephantimorpha is the oldest known nongomphothere proboscidean to probably display horizontal tooth displacement, typical of elephants [Elephantimorpha consists of Mammutida (mastodons) and Elephantida, and Elephantida includes gomphotheres, stegodons, and elephants]. Together with the newly discovered late Oligocene gomphotheres from Chilga, Ethiopia, the Eritrean taxon points to the importance of East Africa as a major area for the knowledge of the early evolution of Elephantimorpha before the faunal exchange between Eurasia and Africa.

evolution | NE Africa | palaeontology | horizontal tooth displacement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

This article is a PNAS direct submission.

To whom correspondence may be addressed. E-mail: dzinner{at}gwdg.de or jshosh{at}sun.science.wayne.edu

© 2006 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA

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