News: Extinct elephant survived late in North China

They had previously been identified as Elephas maximus, the Asian elephant that still inhabits southern China.

The findings suggest that Palaeoloxodon survived a further 7,000 years than was thought.

The team from China examined fossilised elephant teeth and ancient elephant-shaped bronzes for the study.

The research, published in Quaternary International was carried out by a group of scientists from Shaanxi Normal University and Northwest University in Xi'an and The Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Beijing.

No wild elephants live in North China today, but historical documents indicate that they roamed freely 3,000 years ago.

For decades experts believed that the ancient elephants were E. maximus - a species adapted to a tropical climate and that is still found in China's southerly Yunnan province.

"They thought North China was controlled by tropical climate at that time," explained Ji Li, from Shaanxi Normal University, who collaborated on the study with colleagues professor Yongjian Hou, professor Yongxiang Li and Jie Zhang.

But later research into China's climate history indicates that 3,000 years ago most parts of North China were still controlled by the warm temperate climate zone, and not the subtropic zone.

This discovery would mean that "the air temperature of North China 3,000 years ago was still not high enough for Elephas to live," said Mr Li.

"The species of the elephants is not only a problem of zoology, but also a problem about global climate change," he added.

Palaeoloxodon was thought to have disappeared from its last stronghold in China just before the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary, around 10,000 years ago.

To investigate whether these mammals continued to live beyond the Pleistocene epoch and into the Holocene (the current geological epoch), the team re-examined fossilised elephant teeth discovered in Holocene layers of rock in North China during the 1900s.

Earlier scientists had identified these fossils as remains of E. maximus. But Mr Li's team concluded the molars and tusks were more like those of the straight-tusked Palaeoloxodon:

"The tusks of Palaeoloxodon are thicker, stronger and longer than [those of] E. maximus", he explained, whereas E. maximus's tusks are "more incurvate"...

More information:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/20678793