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About 10 million years ago, Platybelodon, this delightfully ridiculous ancestor of the elephant, roamed Africa, Asia, Europe & North America. https://www.wired.com/2013/10/absurd-creature-of-the-week-spork-elephant/ #Art by Tomasz Jedrzejowski #science
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

paleontologist William Sanders of the University of Michigan wrote in an email to WIRED. “But recent analysis of tusk wear surfaces show that they were used more as scythes to cut tough vegetation.”

WHAT

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

If it wasn't you that had posted this I would have sworn this was a prank...
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

"OK, AI - draw a picture of the offspring and an upside-down beaver..."
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

I want to believe - but if these had ever really existed, wouldn't there already be an open source software project named after them?
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

the article suggests they most likely did not look like that, thankfully. Those cartoon like jaws couldn’t work. As the article says, trunks are separate to mouths. There’s a model of one, later in the article, that seems to be closer to what current archaeologists believe they looked like. Still weird though. The problem for archaeologists is, trunks don’t fossilise as well as jaw bones.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

The fact that I found out about this on Mastodon is rather fitting.

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