Welcome back ladies and gentlemen to the Animal Ancestry blog, where I tell you all about the theoretical ancestors of animals we know and love today!
Now, I know what you're thinking. What in the H-E-double hockey sticks is a "Derpodon"? Well, do you remember the word "derpy"? Kinda popular in the mid-2010's? To be honest, I hadn't either, right up until I saw this thing.
This my friends, is the derpy Platybelodon. Between the various definitions on Urban Dictionary, "derpy" basically means extremely awkward, which is honestly a perfect description of this weirdo.
Before I continue, who do you think is the closest living relative of this bizarre beast is?
Is it the elephant?
Well, if you said the elephant, then you were right! Hooray! You reward is...uh...to bully whoever said it was the hippo :D
That's right! Even though it looks more like a mixture of the two, this shovel-mouthed mammal is an ancient ancestor of the largest land mammal on Earth, the elephant. Existing about 20 million years ago, Platybelodon roamed the continents of Asia and Africa, very much like modern elephants do today. Their name literally means "flat tooth", using it's shovel-like mouth to scoop and crush vegetation in aquatic environments. They also used their surprisingly sharp incisors to peel bark off of trees. Several theories suggest whether it actually had a trunk or not. Either way, it was definitely scooping and peeling with it's spork of a mouth.
(They're in the Ice Age movies too)
As funny as it looks, the Platybelodon had it's mouth for a reason, emphasizing that every adaptation an animal goes through is never pointless. The good thing is, the modern day elephant has reached is at its peak of adaptation, thriving as the surprisingly intelligent gentle-giants we know and love today. Well, at least they're supposed to. We just can't stop killing them. Elephants have been my favorite animal for as long as I can remember, and it's heartbreaking to see how fast they are depleting in the wild.
Thanks for reading! If you want to see me cover a specific animal's ancestor, let me know below. See you soon ;)
Photo sources:
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I wonder how they chewed their food though, did they have more teeth or was that it? Maybe they went extinct or evolved away from their original design because they kept getting sticks stuck in their throats. But I really like that you included the save the elephants website
ReplyDeleteI love this article! I really found it interesting how elephants evolved into trunks.
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