Ancient 5.5-Million-Year-OId “Elephant Graveyard” Discovered In Northern Florida
The complete skeletons of several specimens were discovered in what is likely a record-breaking find.
Russell is a Science Writer with IFLScience and has a PhD in the History of Science, Medicine and Technology
DR. RUSSELL MOUL
The team of researchers and volunteers digging up the remains of the ancient ancestor to the modern elephant.
The specimens of the long-extinct species of elephant are over 5.5 million years old and represent a unique find for Florida.
A team of researchers and volunteers at the Florida Museum of Natural History have discovered an ancient “elephant graveyard” containing the fossilized remains of a long-extinct ancestor to our modern-day pachyderms. The find may also provide the largest known specimen of the animal ever discovered in Florida.
Sometimes around 5.5 million years ago, a number of gomphotheres, an extinct ancestor to elephants, died in or around a now vanished prehistoric river in northern Florida. Although it is likely that the animals died at different times, some hundreds of years apart, their bodies nevertheless ended up deposited in the same location where they were entombed until early 2022.
At the time, the team found parts of gomphothere skeletons in the Montbrook Fossil Dig, which was nothing special. Fragments and isolated bones had been found there in the past, so there was no reason to suspect that anything unusual was happening. Then, a few days later, volunteers unearthed what appeared to be a huge articulated foot. Subsequent work revealed it to be an ulna and radius belonging to a large gomphothere. Soon, they had recovered an entire skeleton. It was an extremely exciting discovery for the team.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime find,” Jonathan Bloch, curator of vertebrate palaeontology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, said in a statement. “It’s the most complete gomphothere skeleton from this time period in Florida and among the best in North America.”
https://www.iflscience.com/ancient-55-million-year-oid-elephant-graveyard-discovered-in-northern-florida-69220
