Europe is not known for its elephants. At least the three species of elephants that cross the globe today – African elephants Loxodonta africana and Loxodonta cyclotis And the Asian elephant Elephas Maximus – Not famous for wandering around Europe. But not too long ago, a straight cat elephant Palaeoloxodon antiquus Living all over the continent, it left lasting traces on European topography.
April 2025 Research Frontiers of biogeography Let’s take another look at these extinct herbivores. These were wiped out by human hunting during the last ice age, about 50,000 to 34,000 years ago. Reproducing ranges and reconstructing habitats, new research shows that current climatic conditions in Europe are still suitable for straight beating elephants, i.e., if these elephants are in fact present,
read more: The Neanderthals hunted and ate elephants caught straight
Ancient Elephant Engineer
Current potential distribution of straight beating elephants (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) in Europe. Coloring represents a possibility of occurrence, with gray indicating “very unlikely” and “very likely” of dark green. The black dots discover that fossils are the basis for prediction. (Image credit: Gaiser et al.)
P. Antiques The elephant has lived in Europe for about 700,000 years and survived several ice ages before it disappeared.
“The fossil evidence shows that P. Antiques Manuel Steinbauer, senior author of the new study and an ecologist at Bailos University in Germany, said: press release. It’s one of those “like modern elephants,” he added in the release.
Another similarity is their impact on the environment. Modern elephants are expert “ecosystem engineers” who tend to shape their surroundings, trimming and trampling vegetation through grazing to level geography. Throughout his time in Europe, straight, beating elephants also changed habitats, maintaining thin woodlands and open terrain that they otherwise would have filled in.
According to the release, Franca Geiser, the research’s lead author and another ecologist, said: “Many European species, especially plants that thrive in open habitats, may have been established in European diversity because they benefited from these ecological effects.”
Certainly the scenery is that P. Antiques Although sustainable ones may still be suitable for many of the native European plants, P. Antiques Do you still support the same environment? In other words, you can P. Antiques If they weren’t pursued extinction, would they thrive in Europe today?
read more: Have humans exterminated the biggest animals?
The current climate of an elephant landscaper?
Wanting to know, the authors of the new study looked into previously published papers. P. Antiques. Assigning certain fossils to a specific period of warm and cool climate, then consulting with climate models from those specific periods, the team was able to reconstruct the range and habitat of the P. Antiques Through history.
Comparing these historic habitats with European habitats over the past 50,000 to 34,000 years, the team has revealed that if human hunting hasn’t wiped them, straight, oppressed elephants can survive to the present, taking into account the climate alone. The team also revealed that straight cat elephants can thrive today, especially in flatter regions of Western and Central Europe.
According to the team, the results reveal the drawbacks of traditional European conservation strategies. These strategies are usually aimed at keeping the European ecosystem intact.
“The traditional European conservation strategy aims to protect biodiversity, primarily by protecting habitat from human activities,” Geiser said in the release. “However, this strategy alone is unlikely to restore lost ecological functions of megafauna.”
The reintroduction of extant herbivores, such as horses and cows, into Europe could potentially compensate for some loss of extinct herbivores, such as straight, pointed elephants. However, it is not clear whether existing megafaunas can completely replace extinct megafaunas, at least in terms of landscaping capabilities. Only time has been known, but it is entirely possible that there are no other species that can shape European topography like an elephant that touches straight.
read more: Which animals were mostly early hunted?
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Sam Walters is a journalist covering evolution for archaeology, paleontology, ecology and discovery, and has an assortment of other topics. Before joining the Discover team as an assistant editor in 2022, Sam studied journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
