Mammuthus subplanifrons

Mammuthus subplanifrons is the oldest known representative of the mammoth genus, living from about 6.2 to 3.75 million years ago in the late Miocene and early Pliocene in what is today South Africa and East Africa, especially Ethiopia, and possibly central Africa. It already had one of the traits of later mammoths, spirally twisting tusks. Henry Fairfield Osborn first named it Archidiskodon subplanifrons in 1928 from a partial lower third molar collected at the Vaal River in South Africa, but it has been argued that this type specimen is really a Loxodonta tooth, and the species has been called a wastebasket taxon. It is known almost entirely from teeth, with no skulls found, and its third molars have nine plates and a loop wear pattern rather than the diamond shape of living elephants. Specimens come from South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia and Malawi, and isotope analysis of specimens from the Varswater Formation suggests it was a flexible feeder.