Palaeoloxodon huaihoensis

Palaeoloxodon huaihoensis is an extinct species of elephant belonging to the genus Palaeoloxodon, known from the Pleistocene of China. J. Liu first named it in 1977 as a subspecies of Palaeoloxodon naumanni from a partial skeleton found at Huaiyuan in Anhui, and G. Qi raised it to species rank in 1999, including other Chinese Palaeoloxodon remains such as the abundant material from the Penghu Channel between the Penghu archipelago and Taiwan. Its body size was very large, comparable to the Indian Palaeoloxodon namadicus and the European straight-tusked elephant, with specimens from the Penghu Channel and Taiwan estimated at shoulder heights of over 4 metres and body masses over 13 tonnes. Its postcranial skeleton is substantially more robust than that of the Indian species and resembles that of the straight-tusked elephant, and its skulls lack the infraorbital depression found in P. namadicus.