Palaeogenomes of Eurasian straight-tusked elephants challenge the current view of elephant evolution.

Elife
Authors
Keywords
Abstract

The straight-tusked elephants spp. were widespread across Eurasia during the Pleistocene. Phylogenetic reconstructions using morphological traits have grouped them with Asian elephants (), and many paleontologists place within . Here, we report the recovery of full mitochondrial genomes from four and partial nuclear genomes from two fossils. These fossils were collected at two sites in Germany, Neumark-Nord and Weimar-Ehringsdorf, and likely date to interglacial periods ~120 and ~244 thousand years ago, respectively. Unexpectedly, nuclear and mitochondrial DNA analyses suggest that was a close relative of extant African forest elephants (). Species previously referred to are thus most parsimoniously explained as having diverged from the lineage of , indicating that has not been constrained to Africa. Our results demonstrate that the current picture of elephant evolution is in need of substantial revision.

Year of Publication
2017
Journal
Elife
Volume
6
Date Published
2017 06 06
ISSN
2050-084X
DOI
10.7554/eLife.25413
PubMed ID
28585920
PubMed Central ID
PMC5461109
Links
Grant list
Wellcome Trust / United Kingdom