Palaeoloxodon naumanni
| Palaeoloxodon naumanni Temporal range: Middle to Late Pleistocene
| |
|---|---|
| |
Scientific classification 
| |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Proboscidea |
| Family: | Elephantidae |
| Genus: | †Palaeoloxodon |
| Species: | †P. naumanni
|
| Binomial name | |
| †Palaeoloxodon naumanni (Makiyama, 1924)
| |
| Synonyms | |
| |
Palaeoloxodon naumanni[1] is an extinct species of elephant belonging to the genus Palaeoloxodon found in the Japanese archipelago during the Middle to Late Pleistocene around 330,000 to 24,000 years ago. It is named after Heinrich Edmund Naumann who discovered the first fossils at Yokosuka, Kanagawa, Japan, and sometimes called Naumann's elephant. Fossils attributed to P. naumanni are also known from China and Korea, though the status of these specimens is unresolved, and some authors regard them as belonging to separate species.
Description[edit]
Palaeoloxodon naumanni, like other members of the genus Palaeoloxodon had a parietal-occipital crest on the top of the skull to anchor the splenius and possibly other muscles to support the head. In comparison to other Eurasian species of Palaeoloxodon, the parietal-occipital crest was only weakly developed.[2] The species like other elephants was sexually dimorphic, with P. naumanni having a reconstructed shoulder height of 2.4–2.8 metres (7.9–9.2 ft), for males and around 2 metres (6.6 ft) for females. This is relatively small in comparison to other (non-dwarf) Palaeoloxodon species. The shoulders represent the highest position of the back. The limb bones are generally robust, and the deltoid muscle ridge on the humerus is well developed. The tusks were upward curving and somewhat twisted in males, but were relatively straight and untwisted in females, and reached a maximum length of about 2.2–2.4 metres (7.2–7.9 ft) and a maximum diameter of 20 centimetres (7.9 in).[3]
Discovery and nomenclature[edit]
In 1860, the first fossil record was found at Yokosuka and the bottom of the Seto Inland Sea, Japan. Heinrich Edmund Naumann researched and reported these fossils in “Ueber japanische Elephanten der Vorzeit” (1882). Naumann classified the fossil as Elephas namadicus Falconer & Cautley. In 1924, Jiro Makiyama researched fossils found in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture, and, in his “Notes on a Fossil Elephant from Sahamma, Totomi”, reported that the elephant was a previously unidentified subspecies, and designated the fossil Elephas namadicus naumannni. Tadao Kamei identified Elephas namadicus naumanni as a new species, called Palaeoloxodon naumanni, from fossils found at Lake Nojiri.[4] In the 1920s and 1930s several other Palaeoloxodon species and subspecies were identified in Japan, including Palaeoloxodon tokunagai, P. namadicus namad, P. namadicus yabei, P. aomoriensis and P. yokohamanus. These were all later synonymised with P. naumanni during the 1970s. Historically, some Japanese researchers continued to place the species in the genus Elephas (which contains the living Asian elephant).[3]
Remains from mainland China and Korea have been attributed to this species by some authors. However, other authors attribute the Chinese remains, which are considerably larger than Japanese P. naumanni, to the separate species P. huaihoensis, originally named as a subspecies of P. naumanni.[2]
Distribution and ecology[edit]
The oldest known date for the species is around 330,000 years ago,[3] when it seems to have replaced the earlier proboscidean Stegodon orientalis, which had arrived from mainland East Asia several hundred thousand years earlier.[5] P. naumanni is known from hundreds of localities across the Japanese archipelago, ranging from southern Kyushu, northwards to Hokkaido,[3] during warmer intervals, while it was replaced there by the woolly mammoth during cooler intervals.[6] It is suggested that it preferred temperate forested habitats, including deciduous broad-leaved trees and conifers, and is thought to have inhabited a wide range of altitudes, from sea level to over 1,000 metres (3,300 ft).[3] Dental microwear analysis of a specimen from Yamanashi Prefecture suggests that it had a diet rich in coarse browse like bark and twigs.[7] Palaeoloxodon naumanni lived alongside other megafauna species, including the extinct giant deer Sinomegaceros yabei, sika deer, Japanese serow, musk deer, the extinct steppe bison, brown bears, black bears, tigers and wolves.[3]
Relationship with humans[edit]
Humans are thought to have arrived in the Japanese archipelago around 40,000 years ago. Bones of P. naumanni alongside those of the extinct giant deer Sinomegaceros yabei at Lake Nojiri in Nagano Prefecture dating to approximately 37,900 years Before Present, have been found together with many lithic and bone tool artifacts, suggesting that the elephants were butchered by humans at the site.[8]
Extinction[edit]
The most recent reliable dates for the species are around 24,000 years Before Present, during the early stages of the Last Glacial Maximum. Any more recent dates are considered unreliable.[9] Some authors have suggested that its extinction was due to climatic change resulting in loss of habitat and population fragmentation, while others suggest humans may have been a contributing factor in the extinction.[3]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ Norihisa, Inuzuka; Hasegawa, Yoshikazu; Nogariya, Hiroshi; Kamei, Tadao (31 Jan 1975). "On the Stylohyoid Bone of Naumann's Elephant (Elephas naumanni MAKIYAMA) from Lake Nojiri" (PDF). Memoirs of the Faculty of Science, Kyoto University. Series of Geology and Mineralogy. 41 (1): 49. Retrieved 2 March 2017.
- ^ a b Larramendi, Asier; Zhang, Hanwen; Palombo, Maria Rita; Ferretti, Marco P. (February 2020). "The Evolution of Palaeoloxodon Skull Structure: Disentangling Phylogenetic, Sexually Dimorphic, Ontogenetic, and Allometric Morphological Signals". Quaternary Science Reviews. 229: 106090. Bibcode:2020QSRv..22906090L. doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2019.106090. S2CID 213676377.
- ^ a b c d e f g Takahashi, Keiichi (2022-10-29). "An Overview of Palaeloxodon naumanni, the Palaeoloxodon (Elephantidae) of the Far East: Distribution, Morphology and Habitat". Historical Biology. 35 (11): 2076–2093. doi:10.1080/08912963.2022.2132857. ISSN 0891-2963.
- ^ "ナウマン象に出会った石器たち「－３万５千年前の石器製作跡か？－」" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on July 22, 2011.
- ^ YOSHIKAWA, Shusaku; KAWAMURA, Yoshinari; TARUNO, Hiroyuki (March 2007). "Land Bridge Formation and Proboscidean Immigration into the Japanese Islands During the Quaternary" (PDF). Journal of Geosciences, Osaka City University. 50: 1–6.
- ^ Takahashi, Keiichi; Soeda, Yuji; Izuho, Masami; Yamada, Goro; Akamatsu, Morio; Chang, Chun-Hsiang (April 2006). "The Chronological Record of the Woolly Mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) in Japan, and its Temporary Replacement by Palaeoloxodon naumanni During MIS 3 in Hokkaido (northern Japan)". Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. 233 (1–2): 1–10. Bibcode:2006PPP...233....1T. doi:10.1016/j.palaeo.2005.08.006.
- ^ Yamada, Eisuke (March 2021). "山梨県兄川産ナウマンゾウ化石のマイクロウェア解析" [Dental microwear analysis for Palaeoloxodon naumanni from Ani-gawa River, Yamanashi, Japan] (PDF). Bulletin of the Yamanashi Prefectural Museum (in Japanese). 15.
- ^ Kondo, Y.; Takeshita, Y.; Watanabe, T.; Seki, M.; Nojiri-ko Excavation Research Group (April 2018). "Geology and Quaternary Environments of the Tategahana Paleolithic Site in Nojiri-ko (Lake Nojiri), Nagano, Central Japan". Quaternary International. 471: 385–395. Bibcode:2018QuInt.471..385K. doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2017.12.012.
- ^ Iwase, Akira; Hashizume, Jun; Izuho, Masami; Takahashi, Keiichi; Sato, Hiroyuki (March 2012). "Timing of Megafaunal Extinction in the Late Late Pleistocene on the Japanese Archipelago". Quaternary International. 255: 114–124. Bibcode:2012QuInt.255..114I. doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2011.03.029.
External links[edit]
| Authority control databases: National |
|---|
