Palaeoloxodon

Palaeoloxodon is an extinct genus that contains the various species of straight-tusked elephants. Its species' remains have been found in Bilzingsleben, Germany; Cyprus; Japan; India; Sicily; Malta; and England during the excavation of the second Channel Tunnel. The English discovery, in 2006 in northwest Kent, dated to around 400,000 years ago, and was of a single adult; associated with it were Palaeolithic stone butchering tools of the type used by Homo heidelbergensis. One species, Palaeoloxodon namadicus, was possibly the largest known land mammal. In 1924, Hikoshichiro Matsumoto  circumscribed Palaeoloxodon as a subgenus of Loxodonta. It included the 'E. antiquus—namadicus group', and he designated 'E. namadicus naumanni Mak.' as its type species. Palaeoloxodon was later thought to be a subgenus of Elephas, but this was abandoned by 2007. In 2016, a DNA sequence analysis of P. antiquus suggested that its closest extant relative may be the African forest elephant, L. cyclotis. The paper argues that P. antiquus is closer to L. cyclotis than L. cyclotis is to the African bush elephant, L. africana, thus invalidating the genus Loxodonta as currently recognized. Alternatively the genus Palaeoloxodon may be invalid, with its various members being better fitted to either Loxodonta or Elephas.