Abstract
AT first sight a student referring to a text-book would think that the evolution of the Proboscidea is a comparaively easy matter to understand. The picture of a straight line of descent from the little Moeritherium, through Palæomastodon, Mastodon, Stegodon, and so on up to the latei mammoths and elephants, seems very easy to read. Closer examination, however, and a reference to the enormous literature on the subject, reveal a most complicated state of affairs. There is an immense number of families, genera, species, and sub-species of elephants already described, many of them still inadequately known; there is still no very clear agreement of what constitutes a specific character in an elephant; and there are many widely diverging views as to the real relationship of the various forms one to another. As species of elephants, e.g. E. antiquus, B. trogontherii, B. primigenius, E. mericUonalis, are so often used as time markers, it is essential that we should have a clear idea as to what they are and as to their inter-relationships. Yet we find specimens described as intermediate by some authorities and the statement hotly denied by others.
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News and Views. Nature 120, 849–854 (1927). https://doi.org/10.1038/120849a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/120849a0