Today, elephants roam the savannas of Africa and rainforests in Asia, however elephant ancestors as soon as lived in Europe and North America earlier than going extinct just like the area’s different historic megafauna. Scientists and a staff of volunteers not too long ago uncovered a prehistoric elephant graveyard in northern Florida close to Gainesville.
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Roughly 5 and a half million years in the past, a number of extinct family members of elephants known as gomphotheres died in or close to a now dried up river. Today, their fossils are giving scientists a novel view into prehistoric Florida.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime find,” curator of vertebrate paleontology on the Florida Museum of Natural History Jonathan Bloch mentioned in a press release. “It’s the most complete gomphothere skeleton from this time period in Florida and among the best in North America.”
Collectively, proboscideans embody trendy elephants and their extinct family members. They have been discovered on each continent earlier than people even arrived, and the gomphotheres like those discovered in Florida have been among the many most various.
Gomphotheres first developed about 23 million years in the past in the early Miocene interval and dispersed into Asia and Europe. They possible crossed the Bering land bridge into North America 16 million years in the past, after which crossed into South America by way of the newly risen Isthmus of Panama round 13 million years later. Rapid local weather change and overhunting from people led to the gomphotheres’ extinction across the finish of the final ice age.
Teams of paleontologists and volunteers started digging on the Montbrook Fossil Dig in 2022. Portions of a gomphothere skeleton have been uncovered early in the spring of 2022, and whereas remoted bones have been discovered at this website, paleontologists didn’t suspect any out of the strange finds till a volunteer discovered the fossilized foot of one thing very massive.
“I started coming upon one after another of toe and ankle bones,” mentioned retired chemistry instructor and volunteer fossil-hunter Dean Warner. “As I continued to dig, what turned out to be the ulna and radius started to be uncovered. We all knew that something special had been found.”
The staff discovered a number of full skeletons, together with one grownup and at the least seven juveniles, inside the subsequent few days. The skeletons will have to be absolutely excavated earlier than their measurement might be precisely decided, however Bloch estimates that the grownup animal was about eight ft tall at its shoulders. The cranium measures over 9 ft lengthy with tusks included.
The elephants have been possible deposited or transported to the world over time. “Modern elephants travel in herds and can be very protective of their young, but I don’t think this was a situation in which they all died at once,” mentioned Rachel Narducci, the gathering supervisor of vertebrate paleontology on the Florida Museum. “It seems like members of one or multiple herds got stuck in this one spot at different times.”
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These fossil beds are about 30 miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico, however this space was nearer to the ocean when these bones have been deposited through the late Miocene. This interval of Earth’s historical past was marked by greater temperatures and sea ranges. Remnants of historic land-dwelling camels, rhinoceroses, and llamas are encased subsequent to recent and saltwater fish, turtles, alligators, and burrowing shrimp. This long-gone Florida river reduce via limestone, and fossils of older marine species like sharks are often discovered in the traditional remnants of its mattress.
The Montbrook gomphothere represents a brand new alternative for scientists to study concerning the lengthy misplaced fauna of North America.
“The best part has been to share this process of discovery with so many volunteers from all over the state of Florida,” Bloch mentioned. “Our goal is to assemble this gigantic skeleton and put it on display, taking its place alongside the iconic mammoth and mastodon already at the Florida Museum of Natural History.”