A team of researchers and volunteers at the Florida Museum of Natural History have discovered an ancient “ elephant graveyard ” containing the fossilized stiff of a long - nonextant ancestor to our modern - day pachyderms . The uncovering may also furnish the largest know specimen of the animal ever discover in Florida .
Sometimes around 5.5 million years ago , a bit of gomphothere , an nonextant ancestor toelephants , pall in or around a now vanished prehistoric river in northern Florida . Although it is likely that the animals go at unlike time , some hundreds of geezerhood aside , their torso nevertheless ended up deposited in the same location where they were entomb until former 2022 .
At the time , the squad found parts of gomphothere skeletons in theMontbrook Fossil Dig , which was nothing special . Fragments and isolated bones had been found there in the past , so there was no reason to mistrust that anything strange was materialize . Then , a few days later on , unpaid worker unearthed what look to be a vast articulated infantry . Subsequent work divulge it to be anulna and radiusbelonging to a large gomphothere . Soon , they had recoup an entire skeleton . It was an extremely exciting find for the team .
Illustrations of the different genera of gomphotheres, including theRhynchotherium, which have been found in Florida.Image courtesy of Pedro Toledo (CC BY 2.0)
“ This is a once - in - a - lifetime find , ” Jonathan Bloch , conservator of vertebrate palaeontology at the Florida Museum of Natural History , order in astatement . “ It ’s the most utter gomphothere skeleton from this time period in Florida and among the best in North America . ”
Soon after , however , it became exculpated that the deceased fauna was not alone . In the end , the squad recovered full skeletons from one grownup and at least seven juveniles .
More oeuvre is need before the squad can accurately find out the creature ’ sizes , but Bloch conceive the grownup specimen was around 2.4 m grandiloquent ( 8 feet ) – with its tusk , the skull measures over 2.7 meters ( 9 feet ) in length . This is about the sizing of a New African elephant and represents a record book for a local gomphothere specimens .
“ Modern elephants travel in herds and can be very protective of their young , ” explained Rachel Narducci , solicitation manager of vertebrate palaeontology at the Florida Museum , “ but I do n’t recollect this was a berth in which they all pass away at once . It seems like members of one or multiple herd got baffle in this one pip at different time . ”
“ We ’ve never attend anything like this at Montbrook , ” Narducci added . “ normally , we witness just one part of a frame at this site . The gomphotheres must have been buried cursorily , or they may have been caught in a curve of the river where the stream was reduced . ”
Gomphotheres , along with mod elephants , are collectively call proboscideans . Relatives of elephantswere once abundant across most continents until humankind arrived , and gomphotheres were some of the most divers . These with child mammals have an exceptionally long place in the fogy record , spanning over20 million age . They first emerge in Africa and then pass around out across Europe and Asia , finally crossing the Bering Land Bridge into North America . During this time , they evolved various unequaled feature article that allowed them to endure wherever they settled .
“ We all generally jazz what mastodon and woolly mammoths bet like , but gomphotheres are n’t near as easy to categorize , ” Narducci said . “ They had a smorgasbord of eubstance sizes , and the shape of their tusks differed widely between species . ”
Typically , palaeontologists usetusksas a way to discover a coinage . The gomphothere at Montbrook have a spiral band of enamel running along the length of their tusks , which give them the coming into court of a " barber ’s perch ” . Interestingly , only one mathematical group of gomphothere with this pattern be at the time , which allowed Bloch and Narducci to identify the coinage as belonging to genusRhyncotherium .
“ A fogy web site in southern California is the only other place in the U.S. that has produce a bombastic sampling ofRhynchotheriumjuveniles and adult , ” Bloch said . “ We ’re already learning so much about the shape and biological science of this radical that we did n’t experience before , including new fact about the shape of the skull and tusks . ”
The Montbrook find offer exciting view for future inquiry and provide an opportunity to learn more about these enormous animal that roamed North America so long ago .
“ The good part has been to deal this process of discovery with so many volunteers from all over the land of Florida , ” Bloch said . “ Our end is to piece this mammoth skeleton and put it on display , take its place alongside the iconic mammoth and mastodon already at the Florida Museum of Natural History . ”
