Elephantidae is a family of large, herbivorous proboscidean mammals collectively called elephants and mammoths. These are large terrestrial mammals with a snout modified into a trunk and teeth modified into tusks. Most genera and species in the family are extinct. Only two genera, Loxodonta and Elephas, are living.
The African forest elephant is one of the two living African elephant species. It is native to humid forests in West Africa and the Congo Basin. It is the smallest of the three living elephant species, reaching a shoulder height of 2.4 m. Both sexes have straight, down-pointing tusks, which erupt when they are 1–3 years old. It lives in family groups of up to 20 individuals. Since it forages on leaves, seeds, fruit, and tree bark, it has been referred to as the 'megagardener of the forest'. It contributes significantly to maintain the composition and structure of the Guinean Forests of West Africa and the Congolese rainforests.
Palaeoloxodon is an extinct genus of elephant. The genus originated in Africa during the Pliocene, and expanded into Eurasia during the Pleistocene. The genus contains some of the largest known species of elephants, over 4 metres (13 ft) tall at the shoulders, including the European straight-tusked elephant, and the South Asian Palaeoloxodon namadicus, the latter of which has been suggested to be the largest known land mammal based on extrapolation from fragmentary remains, though these estimates are highly speculative. In contrast, the genus also contains many species of dwarf elephants that evolved via insular dwarfism on islands in the Mediterranean, some only 1 metre (3.3 ft) in height, making them the smallest elephants known. The genus has a long and complex taxonomic history, and at various times, it has been considered to belong to Loxodonta or Elephas, but today is usually considered a valid and separate genus in its own right.
Hadar or Hadar Formation is a paleontological site in Mille district, Administrative Zone 1 of the Afar Region, Ethiopia, 15 km upstream (west) of the A1 road's bridge across the Awash River.
Mellivora is a genus of mustelids that contains the honey badger or ratel (Mellivora capensis). It is also the sole living representative of the subfamily Mellivorinae. Additionally, two extinct species are known. The honey badger is native to much of Africa and South Asia, while fossil relatives occurred in those areas and Southern Europe.
African elephants (Loxodonta) are a genus comprising two living elephant species, the African bush elephant and the smaller African forest elephant. Both are social herbivores with grey skin, but differ in the size and colour of their tusks and in the shape and size of their ears and skulls.
The Awash is a major river of Ethiopia. Its course is entirely contained within the boundaries of Ethiopia and empties into a chain of interconnected lakes that begin with Lake Gargori and end with Lake Abbe on the border with Djibouti, some 100 kilometres from the head of the Gulf of Tadjoura. It is the principal stream of an endorheic drainage basin covering parts of the Amhara, Oromia and Somali Regions, as well as the southern half of the Afar Region.
The Afar Triangle is a geological depression caused by the Afar Triple Junction, which is part of the Great Rift Valley in East Africa. The region has disclosed fossil specimens of the very earliest hominins; that is, the earliest of the human clade, and it is thought by some paleontologists to be the cradle of the evolution of humans. The Depression overlaps the borders of Eritrea, Djibouti and the entire Afar Region of Ethiopia; and it contains the lowest point in Africa, Lake Assal, Djibouti, at 155 m (509 ft) below sea level.
Australopithecus bahrelghazali is an extinct species of australopithecine discovered in 1995 at Koro Toro, Bahr el Gazel, Chad, existing around 3.5 million years ago in the Pliocene. It is the first and only australopithecine known from Central Africa, and demonstrates that this group was widely distributed across Africa as opposed to being restricted to East and southern Africa as previously thought. The validity of A. bahrelghazali has not been widely accepted, in favour of classifying the specimens as A. afarensis, a better known Pliocene australopithecine from East Africa, because of the anatomical similarity and the fact that A. bahrelghazali is known only from 3 partial jawbones and an isolated premolar. The specimens inhabited a lakeside grassland environment with sparse tree cover, possibly similar to the modern Okavango Delta, and similarly predominantly ate C4 savanna foods—such as grasses, sedges, storage organs, or rhizomes—and to a lesser degree also C3 forest foods—such as fruits, flowers, pods, or insects. However, the teeth seem ill-equipped to process C4 plants, so its true diet is unclear.
Motty was the only proven hybrid between an Asian and an African elephant. The male calf was born in Chester Zoo, to Asian mother Sheba and African father Jumbolino. He was named after George Mottershead, who founded the Chester Zoo in 1931.
Aramis is a village and archaeological site in north-eastern Ethiopia, where remains of Australopithecus and Ardipithecus have been found. The village is located in Administrative Zone 5 of the Afar Region, which is part of the Afar Sultanate of Dawe, with a latitude and longitude of 10°30′N40°30′E, and is part of the, Carri Rasuk, Xaale Faagê Daqaara.
Yohannes Haile-SelassieAmbaye is an Ethiopian paleoanthropologist. An authority on pre-Homo sapiens hominids, he particularly focuses his attention on the East African Rift and Middle Awash valleys. He was curator of Physical Anthropology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History from 2002 until 2021, and now is serving as the director of the Arizona State University Institute of Human Origins. Since founding the institute in 1981, he has been the third director after Donald Johanson and William Kimbel.
The African bush elephant, also known as the African savanna elephant, is one of two extant African elephant species and one of three extant elephant species. It is the largest living terrestrial animal, with bulls reaching a shoulder height of up to 3.96 m and a body mass of up to 10.4 t.
Loxodonta adaurora is an extinct species of elephant in the genus Loxodonta, that of the African elephants. Fossils of Loxodonta adaurora have only been found in Africa, where they developed in the Pliocene. L. adaurora was presumed to be the genetic antecedent of the two modern African elephant species; however, an analysis in 2009 suggested that L. africana evolved from L. atlantica. The same study concluded that Loxodonta adaurora was morphologically indistinguishable from Mammuthus subplanifrons and that these constituted the same species.
The Daka calvaria, otherwise known as the Dakaskull, or specimen number BOU-VP-2/66, is a Homo erectus specimen from the Daka Member of the Bouri Formation in the Middle Awash Study Area of the Ethiopian Rift Valley.
Jon Kalb August 17, 1941 - October 27, 2017 was a research geologist with the Vertebrate Paleontology Laboratory, University of Texas at Austin. He received a pre-doctoral fellowship from the Carnegie Geophysical Laboratory in 1968, a graduate fellowship from Johns Hopkins University in 1969, and a BSc from American University in 1970.
Loxodonta atlantica is an extinct species of elephant in the genus Loxodonta, from Africa. It was larger than the modern African elephant, with more progressive dentition. It includes Pleistocene fossils from Ternifine, Middle Pleistocene fossils from Elandsfontein and Late Pliocene fossils from the Omo River, with a final dating in the Late Pleistocene. L. atlantica was said to probably derive from L. adaurora; however, an analysis in 2009 suggested that L. atlantica evolved from L. exoptata, and is ancestral to L. africana. The species is divided into two subspecies: L. atlantica atlantica and L. atlantica zulu. The type for Loxodonta atlantica is housed in the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris, but is listed without a specimen number.
Pliopapio is an extinct genus of Old World monkey known from the latest part of the Miocene to the early Pliocene Epochs from the Afar Region of Ethiopia. It was first described based on a very large series of fossils from the site of Aramis in the Middle Awash, which has been dated by 40Ar/39Ar to 4.4 million years old. It has since been found from similarly aged sediments at Gona, approximately 75 km to the North. Additional fossils from the Middle Awash extend its known time range back to at least 5.3 million years ago. There is only one known species, Pliopapio alemui.
Mellivora benfieldi or Benfield's honey badger is an extinct species of mustelid from the Late Miocene and Early Pliocene of Africa and possibly Europe.
