Palaeoloxodon recki

Palaeoloxodon recki, often known by the synonym Elephas recki, is an extinct species of elephant native to Africa and West Asia from the Pliocene or Early Pleistocene to the Middle Pleistocene. Over most of its existence it was the dominant elephant of East Africa. The species in its broad sense is divided into five roughly successive subspecies, together called the Elephas recki complex, and the latest two, P. recki recki and P. recki ileretensis, are widely accepted as ancestral to the Eurasian Palaeoloxodon. It was first named in 1915 from Bed IV at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, as a subspecies of the European straight-tusked elephant, and it honours the geologist Hans Reck. A male of the subspecies atavus from Koobi Fora in Kenya was estimated at 4.27 metres tall and 12.3 tonnes. Its molars show it was a dedicated grazer, and the latest subspecies underwent extensive hybridisation with West African forest elephants.