Mammuthus africanavus

Mammuthus africanavus, whose name means African ancestor mammoth, is a species of mammoth known from Late Pliocene to Early Pleistocene deposits in Central and North Africa, including present-day Chad, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria. Camille Arambourg described it in 1952 from remains found near Lake Ichkeul in northern Tunisia and first assigned it to Elephas, and some authors have proposed placing it in Loxodonta because early elephant teeth are hard to tell apart. It differs from the earlier Mammuthus subplanifrons in having numerous ridges on its molars, about nine to ten on the third molars, and its molars are higher crowned with more cementum and thinner enamel. The oldest specimens date to about 3.5 to 3 million years ago and the youngest to about 2.32 to 2 million years ago. A skull from Garet et Tir in Algeria, now apparently lost, had twisted tusks at least 2.3 metres long.