University of Tübingen Explores the Proboscideans of the Hammersmiths, Contemporaries of the Great Ape ‘Udo’
While only three elephant species from Africa and Asia are known in today’s tropical wildlife, the species diversity and distribution of the proboscideans were significantly greater in Earth’s past. From the Hammerschmiede site near Pforzen, which became known worldwide thanks to the first two-legged great ape Danuvius guggenmosi – called “Udo” – a research team from Tübingen has now examined the remains of proboscideans for the first time. They lived in the Allgäu landscape at the same time as Udo, around 11.5 million years ago. The finds of eight individuals could be assigned to two species. The team from the University of Tübingen and the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment has now published its results in the journal Journal of Mammalian Evolution .
Proboscideans are the largest land mammals we know. Four of the animals from the hammer forge now examined belong to the extinct tusk elephants (Deinotheria – from the ancient Greek word “deinos” for terrible and “therion” for animal). This primitive family of pachyderms separated from the other proboscideans during evolution 30 million years ago. Their characteristic features are backward curved, tusk-like lower tusks. In addition, the upper tusks that are otherwise typical of elephants are missing. These finds, which are predominantly young animals, were assigned to the species Deinotherium levius .
Nestled next to Danuvius : a baby tusker elephant
“A discovery from 2020 is of particular importance, when a partial skeleton of a few months old baby Deinotherium was found for the first time,” reports Dr. George Konidaris, the lead author of the new study. The young animal, documented by 24 skeletal elements – including the lower jaw, ribs, pelvis as well as the tibia and fibula – was located in the immediate vicinity of a female Danuvius .
The find is a stroke of luck for science. “Never before had a young tusker elephant been discovered that had both the permanent tusks and their precursors from the milk teeth. This short phase in the life of the proboscis is rarely documented in fossils. The find is therefore of great importance for a better understanding of the individual and life history of the deinotheres.”
In fact, the find from the hammer forge is only the third evidence of dairy farmers in Deinotheria worldwide. “The cub’s milk tusk was found right next to its lower jaw. Computed tomographic images of the jaw also show the germs of the permanent tusks, which were already embedded deep in the bone tissue,” says excavation manager at the hammersmith Thomas Lechner.
Otherwise, the lower jaw has no other tooth germs, only milk molars. The researchers conclude from this that the permanent tusks of the tusked elephants erupted at a very early stage of development, while the milk teeth were still complete – the situation is similar with the elephants living today, their distant relatives. The tusks were therefore the first visible teeth in the permanent dentition of these animals.
Tetralophodon – the giant from the hammer forge
The second species of proboscidean hammersmith is the elephant-like Tetralophodon longirostris . These cusp-toothed proboscideans also differ from real elephants and mammoths in that they have tusks in both the upper and lower jaws. The most important example of the four individuals from the hammer forge is a partial skeleton of an adult bull, which was excavated more than 40 years ago by the two Allgäu private collectors Sigulf Guggenmos and Manfred Schmid. “Based on the powerful tusks and the size and wear of its molars, we suspect it was a male between the ages of 37 and 48. Its live weight was a good ten tons and its shoulder height was around 3.5 meters,” explains George Konidaris.
The type of wear on the teeth also tells scientists a lot about the diet of these pachyderms. While Tetralophodon probably preferred a mixed diet of leaves, twigs and grass, Deinotherium was purely a folivore, according to Panagiotis Kampouridis, a graduate student and co-author of the study. These different food niches enabled the two large herbivores to coexist in the Hammerschmiede ecosystem.
Climate change twelve to eleven million years ago
Professor Madelaine Böhme, head of the Hammerschmiede research project, sums up that the pachyderm discoveries from the Hammerschmiede are of outstanding importance for the chronology of the evolution of these proboscideans. The common occurrence of both species in Europe documents a short period between twelve and eleven million years ago, which was characterized by relative dryness and very high temperatures, explains the scientist.
During this phase, the Tetralophodon, which migrated to Europe, prevailed over more primitive elephant-like elephants with cusp teeth. The climate, which became increasingly humid after eleven million years, then led to a change in the large mammals of Europe. Increasing forest cover provided the leaf-eating tusker elephants with plenty of food and allowed them to further increase their body size, leading to the evolution of the new species Deinotherium giganteum .
The excavations in the hammer forge were financed by the University of Tübingen, the Senckenberg Society for Natural Research and the Free State of Bavaria.