Discover the oldest of the elephants

Emmanuel Gheerbrant, a paleontologist at the Paris Museum, has discovered one of the oldest modern ungulates that are related to elephants.

Knowledge of the beginning of the modernization of modern mammals is still very limited due to fossil gaps, especially in some important southern continents such as Africa. Emmanuel Gheerbrant, CNRS researcher (2), reports on the discovery of one of the oldest modern ungulates known in a Moroccan Paleocene, based on the Franco-Moroccan Research Agreement between Chérifien des Phosphates Museum and Office (3). Dating back 60 million years ago, this mammal fossil belongs to a new species called Eritherium azzouzorum. It also came from the same Ouled Abdoun sump that formed Phosphatherium escuilliei (4), but in the lower layer.This is the oldest ' African ' ungulate ever known, and is also the oldest member of the elephant family (proboscideans (5)), so it originates from Africa.

Eritherium azzouzorum is a small species (4 to 5 kg) and very primitive. It illustrates the beginning of their modern hooves at a very primitive time and are not recorded. This is illustrated by primitive groups in proboscideans such as condylarths (6) (louisinines, extinct) and afrotherians (mouse elephants, from the Eocene period to the present day). Its original form shows the rapid evolution of proboscideans during the Paleocene-Eocene transition (7), and the rapid diversification of African ungulate after Cretaceous-Tertiary catastrophe (65 million years) first), most likely related to the occupation of African plant communities.

Specimen (skull) of the primitive proboscidean Eritherium azzouzorum. ( Photo: MNHN, UMR 7207, C. Lemzaouda et P. Louis)

Eritherium provides an oldest moment of their phylogeny with placenta. This is a very important time in the family tree of the placental species.

(1) UMR 7207 (MNHN / CNRS / Université Pierre et Marie Curie), Research Center for Biodiversity and Ancient Environment
(2) National center de la Recherche Scientifique
(3) MNHN-OCP Paleontological Research Agreement - Ministry of Energy and Mining - Cadi Ayyad University (Marrakech) -Chouaib Doukkali University (El Jadida).
(4) was discovered in 1996 by the same research group
(5) The elephant or proboscidea family consists of 3 surviving species, but has a long and rich evolutionary history, with illustrations of fossils of 180 species.
(6) The late Cretaceous and early Tertiary evolutionary ungulate animals, including the original groups of modern ungulate animals, and many extinct herbivores
(7) The transition between Paleocene and Eocene began about 55 million years ago

Refer:
1. Gheerbrant et al.Paleocene emergence of elephant relatives and the rapid radiation of African ungulates.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, June 22, 2009;DOI: 10.1073 / pnas.0900251106