Stegodon (SciiFii)

Stegodon, meaning "roofed tooth" (from the Ancient Greek words στέγω, stégō, 'to cover', + ὀδούς, odoús, 'tooth') because of the distinctive ridges on the animal's molars, is a genus of the subfamily Stegodontinae of the order Proboscidea. It was assigned to the family Elephantidae (Abel, 1919), but has also been placed in the Stegodontidae (R. L. Carroll, 1988).[1] Stegodonts were present from 11.6 million years ago (Mya) to the late Pleistocene, with unconfirmed records of localized survival until 4,100 years ago. Fossils are found in Asian and African strata dating from the late Miocene; during the Pleistocene, they lived across large parts of Asia and East and Central Africa.[1][2]

A review of 130 papers written about 180 different sites with proboscidean remains in southern China revealed Stegodon to have been more common than Asian elephants; the papers gave many recent radiocarbon dates, the youngest being 2,150 BCE (4,100 BP).[2] However, Turvey et al. (2013) reported that one of the faunal assemblages including supposed fossils of Holocene Stegodon (from Gulin, Sichuan Province) is actually late Pleistocene in age; other supposed fossils of Holocene stegodonts were lost and their age cannot be verified. The authors concluded that the latest confirmed occurrences of Stegodon from China are from the late Pleistocene, and that its Holocene survival cannot be substantiated.[3]