Mammuthus meridionalis

Mammuthus meridionalis skeleton, Muséum national d' histoire naturelle, Paris.

• Pitrafitta in central Italy
• Nogaisk in Southern Russia
• Durfort in France
• Ur - Werra in Germany
• North America

The Südelefant (Mammuthus meridionalis ) also called Urmammut or Südmammut, is an extinct Elefantenart and is now the genus Mammuthus attributed. His first described Filippo Nesti assumed an even closer relationship to today's elephants of the genus Elephas and gave him the name Elephas meridionalis. In the meantime he was also meridionalis Archidiskodon.

The type had relatively broad molars with relatively few cross-vanes. The mighty tusks were nearly 4 m long and already showed the characteristic of mammoths screw shape. Large specimens of Südelefanten were about 4 m high. Whether he already had a coat as later mammoth species is not known.

He was one of the early mammoth species and the first left the African region of origin of the genus and Eurasia reached. Prior to about 1.5 million years he wandered about the time a fallen dry Bering land bridge to North America. From the Südelefanten the later mammoth species like the mammoth steppe and prairie mammoth emerged. An ancestor is the two African species Mammuthus Mammuthus africanavus and subplanifrons be considered. The Südelefant lived in the open forest areas of Eurasia and North America, where 2 million years ago, there was a relatively mild climate.

A complete skeleton of a Südelefanten located in the State Museum of Stavropol. The only complete skeleton that was found in North America is on display in Denver. A third specimen, the 4 meters high and "Elephant of Durfort " ( the skeleton of a Südelefanten ) is of Natural History in Paris to see the National Museum.