Mammuthus rumanus

Mammuthus rumanus is a species of mammoth that lived during the Pliocene in Eurasia. It is the oldest mammoth known outside Africa and is probably ancestral to the later Mammuthus meridionalis. It is suggested to have originated in Africa, and material intermediate between African mammoths and M. rumanus has been reported from Bethlehem in the Levant, from the Late Pliocene about 3 to 4 million years ago. The oldest calibrated dates for it, and for mammoths outside Africa, come from Romania and are about 3.2 million years old, and remains have been reported from Great Britain to China. It is known only from fragmentary remains, mostly isolated teeth with one mandible, and its third molars have about 8 to 10 plates, fewer than other non-African mammoths. Specimens from the Red Crag Formation of England suggest it browsed in open environments, while teeth from northern Greece point to a grazing diet, and it shared Europe with the mastodon Mammut borsoni and the gomphothere Anancus arvernensis.