Bhunte remembers what his Grandmom told him on 17th of February, 2018. Bhunte was always excited to know about his trunk and also his father’s long tusks. Bhunte barely knows that 10 to 11 million years ago (between the late Miocene to the Middle Pliocene), there was an elephant-like animal, Tetralophodon, having four tusks and a trunk, taller than Bhunte’s father (Tetralophodon were about 3 to 3.5 m tall). Feeding on vegetables and fruits on taller trees, they weighed around 50 to 100 Bhuntes brought together, almost 10 tonnes! There were almost 350 different elephant-like ancestors. Tetralophodons were among these. Bhunte will soon bring the stories of many of his extinct relatives…

Note: This is just a graphic representation. The tetralophodon had smaller skulls than the current extant species.

Read more on Tetralophodon: https://doi.org/10.1080/02724634.2019.1632321