The giants of ancient China

 possible palaeoxodons alive in ancient times

  Millions and millions of species have existed on this planet throughout its history, some were so impressive and wonderful, but sadly only our ancestors were left with the joy of being able to see them and it is no wonder, since several species have existed and have become extinct and we don't even have an idea, among them, our next case, I hope you support and share this work, I would appreciate it, thanks for reading, let's get started

Palaeoxodon en la antigua China

  Palaeoxodon is an extinct genus of proboscidean mammal of the Elephantidae family, which included several species with straight fangs, The remains of species of this genus have been found mainly in Germany, Cyprus, Japan, Sicily (Italy), Malta and in England.

It is estimated that they became extinct continentally 30,000 years ago and the island forms of the Mediterranean, which disappeared approximately 3,000 years ago, but, some time ago, there was a discovery that could say otherwise.

Well, very recently it has been discovered that this genre possibly survived in China, until 3,000 years ago, a period corresponding between the Shang and Zhou dynasties.

This claim is based on large amounts of archaeological and literary records indicating that during the Shang dynasty and a part of the Zhou dynasty, around 2000 BC. C. to 1000 BC. C., there were once wild elephants that lived in northern China, as well as quite a few works of art, and although it was initially thought that they belonged to an extinct subspecies of the Asian elephant, which lived in the south, fossil evidence would say otherwise.

Fossil evidence

In December 2011, a study by a team of scientists concluded that Palaeoxodon possibly lived during the Chinese dynastic eras, after studying remains of molars and tusks of probocideans from the Holocene era that had the shape of the teeth of these animals, as well as examining bronze ritual objects from the Shang and Zhou dynasties, which represented elephants with two 'fingers' at the tip of their trunks, characteristic that is only known to have been present in palaeoxodons and not in modern elephants.

Although fossil elephant experts Victoria Herridge and Adrian Lister disagree with the assignment, stating that the Claimed diagnostic dental features are actually contrast artifacts, created due to the low resolution of the figures in the scientific article, and they are not evident in better quality photographs, even so, here I leave one of the figures.

Given the lack of knowledge of the soft tissue anatomy of Palaeoloxodon, and that the bronze representations of animals shown in the study by Li Ji and collaborators are highly stylized, the argument that they represent an extinct species does not seem viable. Therefore these surely represent Asian elephants as has been traditionally assumed, so this possible species remains a mystery until it is further analyzed or more remains are discovered.

final analysis

   Anyway, I remain impartial, since we know well that teeth are not a viable way of identification and art does not help much either, so this needs to be studied further to give a verdict, for the time being it remains as a hypothetical eh indeterminate species.

[Reading links]

https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elefante_de_guerra

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1040618211006264

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephants_in_ancient_China