Stegodontidae

Stegodontidae is an extinct family of proboscideans whose members lived in Africa and Asia from the Miocene to the Pleistocene. Stegodonts were elephant-like mammals distinguished by distinctive molar structure and, in many species, long tusks.

Proboscidea: The mammalian order containing elephants and their extinct relatives, including mammoths and mastodons. Stegodontidae belongs within this order of trunked mammals.
Miocene: A geological epoch lasting from about 23 million to 5.3 million years ago. Stegodonts appeared during the Miocene, when their lineage diversified.
Stegodon trigonocephalus: An extinct Stegodon species known from Pleistocene deposits on Java. Its fossils anchor the family’s record in Southeast Asia.
Island rule: The tendency for large mammals on islands to evolve smaller bodies and small mammals to evolve larger bodies. Dwarf stegodonts on Flores and Sulawesi exemplify island-associated size reduction.
Stegodon: An extinct genus of elephant-like proboscideans that lived across Asia and parts of Africa. This genus includes many well-known members of the family.
Pleistocene: A geological epoch lasting from about 2.58 million to 11,700 years ago, marked by repeated ice ages. Some stegodont populations survived into this epoch in Asia.
Stegodon ganesa: An extinct Stegodon species known from the Indian subcontinent. It represents the family’s presence in South Asia.
Insular dwarfism: The evolutionary reduction in body size of a population isolated on an island. Several island stegodonts became much smaller than mainland relatives.
Elephantidae: The family of living elephants and extinct relatives such as mammoths. Its members are close proboscidean relatives, but belong to a separate family.
Stegolophodon: An extinct genus of early stegodont-like proboscideans known from Miocene deposits in Asia. Its fossils illuminate early stages in the group’s evolutionary history.

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