#stegodon

[knuppitalism-with-ue]

Here the result from the Pleistocene Flores #paleostream! This land, stuck between Sundaland and Australia revealed a fascinating fossil assemblage over the last few decades.

Dwarfed Stegodon, giant rats. huge marabou storks and komodo dragons are the most prominent members of the late Pleistocene fauna. Of these only the giant rats are still to be found on Flores.

Flores wasn't much of a household name in paleontology until 2004 - I remember it well - when a astonishing discovery was announced from the cave Liang Bua. Among the many animal remains were stone tools and surprisingly small hominin remains. After a lot of debate this would eventually be known as Homo floresiensis, a human species standing not much taller than 1 m. Little is known about this species. Especially it's cultural expressions and technological advances are the topic of many discussions and speculation.

One aspect that is rarely brought up in discussions around Flores are the birds, yes storks and vultures are popular but there is a huge number of living and fossil species found in these sites. As you can see in this size chart by Discord member JW there are still many interesting compositions to put together here. One thing that was important to me with this image was: 1. not to make it a dense jungle piece, and 2. not that make it a Stegodon hunting scene; that has been done too many times. The cave deposits at Liang Bua suggest that...

H. floresiensis inhabited this site especially during dryer intervals that would probably correlate with more open environments like the Lesser Sundas deciduous forests and savannas.

[visions-of-our-past]

Artist Peter Schouten’s reconstruction of a savannah in Middle Pleistocene Southeast Asia. In the foreground Homo erectus, the elephant Stegodon, hyenas, and Asian rhinoceri are depicted. Water buffalo can be seen at the edge of a riparian forest in the background.

[earlypalaeoart]

"Miocene mammals of the eastern continent: In the foreground Elephas [Stegodon] ganesa, Hydracotherium, Dinotherium [Deinotherium], Machairodus, Mastodon longirostris. In the middle distance, Apes, two Anoplotheres, Palæotherium, Xiphodon, and Sivatherium. Sequoias and Fan Palm in the background."

From The Story of the Earth and Man by J. W. Dawson, 1873

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/42741/42741-h/42741-h.htm

Deinotherium after Klipstein and Kaup, 1836

[gwydpolls]

Time Travel Question 76: 20th Century and Earlier III

If you could travel through time, but only to see something for Research or for fun, not to change anything, what would you pick? Yes you can have a Babel Fish, and are immune to injury and disease.

Paleolithic cultures in what became the Gulf of Thailand

Meet Gustav Klimt

1920's Paris party with Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, Hemingway, Fitzgerald..

1923 salon with Queer Artists Claude Cahun and Suzanne Malherbe

Survey of Dwarf Elephant and Stegodon behavior in the Philippines and Indonesia

Explore NYC 1890's (esp. lower East side)

Accompany John Snow on his 1854 London cholera investigation.

Visiting the "Lion City" under Qiandao Lake during it's heyday

Tea party with Constance Wilde

Ediacaran tide pools

Tehran, Iran 1952

The Olympic Games of 500 BCE

Voting ended onApr 5, 2025

These Questions are the result of suggestions from the previous iteration.

This category may include suggestions made too late to fall into the correct grouping.

Please add new suggestions below if you have them for future consideration.

[252mya]

Elephants Among Us poster

A variety of giant proboscideans shared the planet with humans and other hominins during the Pleistocene and Holocene. Compare their size and discover where they lived with this very cool poster.

252mya.com/elephants

Art by Joschua Knüppe

[jihsjourney]

Stegodon elephantoides (Woodyaan)

“The strange looking stegodon is an elephant species with tusks so tightly placed together, their trunks sorta… awkwardly flop over them to one side. These are highly social and intelligent animals, like most elephants, and herds are known to create their own meadows in the jungle in pursuit of browse to eat.”

“Dran remembers this one. For Recognition Hunt many years back, good strategy, failed execution.”

-Dran

“Bani likes to watch them sometimes. Bani asks Jih to join, but he never does.”

-Bani

[philippinewildlifeart]

Once upon a time, long, long ago, the cousins of elephants once roamed the Philippines. A Stegodon was the first large fossil mammal to be scientifically reported in the country. It was found in 1860, and was thought to have weighed about 400 kg, making it a dwarf stegodon. Stegodons had longer tusks than the elephants of today, and they were so close together that the trunk had to lean to one side of both of them! So far, 4 Philippine Stegadon species have been identified. Read more from the National Museum of the Philippines Facebook page search for Stegodon mindanensis, with text by Jiles Arvin A. Vergara. Artprint: https://society6.com/product/philippine-stegodon-on-undas-or-dia-de-los-muertos_print

[alphynix]

It's finally time for part 2 of the Island Weirdness series!

(If you haven't seen the previous installments, I suggest starting back at the beginning here.)

We left off last time with the dwarf stegodontids of Flores, but other Indonesian islands also had their own populations of unusually small elephant-relatives — so here's a few more to start off this month.

———

Island Weirdness #32 — Tiny Elephants On Parade Part 3: More Indonesia

Sinomastodon bumiajuensis lived on the island of Java during the early Pleistocene, about 2-1.5 million years ago. It stood around 2m tall at the shoulder (6'6"), less than half the size of most other Sinomastodon species from mainland Asia. Although it looked convergently similar to modern elephants it was actually a member of the gomphotheres, much more closely related to the weird "shovel-tuskers" than to any living species.

Stegodon semedoensis, also from the early Pleistocene of Java about 1.5 million years ago, is only known from a few isolated molar teeth — but the size of those teeth suggest it was one of the smallest known pygmy stegodontids. It was probably no more than 1.2m at the shoulder (3'11"), comparable in size to its close relative Stegodon sondaari over on Flores.

Meanwhile on Sulawesi, Elephas celebensis (sometimes called Stegoloxodon celebensis) was an actual true elephant closely related to the modern Asian elephant. Living during the late Pliocene and early Pleistocene, between about 2.5 million and 800,000 years ago, it was only 1.5m tall (5') and had a second set of tusks in its lower jaw, a "primitive" feature retained from the gomphothere-like ancestors of modern elephants.

At the same time Sulawesi also had yet another small stegodontid, Stegodon sompoensis, also around 1.5m tall.

Both of these dwarfs lived alongside a larger Stegodon species, as well as giant tortoises and large-tusked pigs.

The cooling climate of the Pleistocene and dropping sea levels eventually connected the islands of western Indonesia to the Sundaland landmass of mainland Asia. Influxes of new predators and competitors — and early humans — probably drove these endemic small elephants to extinction.