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Description

Pls see the larger image.
This is a preliminary pencil sketch, part of a larger picture which features the late Pliocene assembly of East African megafauna(not fully covered again because of my small scanner).
I'll keep modifying and color this by using acrylic for the very first time...wish me luck on that=]

:The idea of this image:
Two extraordinarily large fossil proboscidea, in fact the largest terrestrial mammals ever of the southern hemisphere, Deinotherium bozasi and Elephas(Palaeoloxodon) recki from the late Pliocene eastern Africa, are both trying to keep a better spot for tree browsing to them selves.
As far as I know, fossils of both Deinotherium bozasi and one of E.recki's subspecies, E.r. ileretensis were among an assemblage of the late Pliocene animals collected in fossil sites of the lake Turkana, known as Kaitio members.

Besides that, fossil distributions of Deinotherium and several subspecies of E.recki are surprisingly overlapped in some other famous localities, especially of eastern Africa and their fossil numbers happen to be the most numerous in the period of the late Pliocene(while both survived well into the Pleistocene time). Elephas recki had relatively high crowned teeth but not as strictly adapted to grass glazing as in later Mammuthus and they may have shared from time to time, the similar partly forested habitats with browsing Deinotheres.
Combining all these, I think it's probable that they had occasional interaction within the late Pliocene time in some of these localities, probably in the vicinity of the lake Turkana area.
This just occured to me and ofcourse, may not be proven as such.

:Morphology:
The African Deinotherium seems to be similar in size and shapes to giant cousins of Eurasia(i.e, D.giganteum), judging from teeth and fragmentary bones, but to what extent did they resemble in terms of post cranial morphologies cannot be judged at the moment.

As to Elephas recki, there's been several skeletons unearthed and one of them is probably the only instance in entire proboscidea fossil finds so far, where the complete skeleton from just a single individual reaches the spectacular shoulder height of 4.5m, if I remember right.
The cranial morphology of this species is really intriguing and tough to draw, since it seems to be rather similar to Loxodonta in its broadness and roundness, yet its eye sockets are placed more frontally and the head is much more pronouncedly domed even than in Elephas maximus!

ⓒJagroar

Description

Pls see the larger image.
This is a preliminary pencil sketch, part of a larger picture which features the late Pliocene assembly of East African megafauna(not fully covered again because of my small scanner).
I'll keep modifying and color this by using acrylic for the very first time...wish me luck on that=]

:The idea of this image:
Two extraordinarily large fossil proboscidea, in fact the largest terrestrial mammals ever of the southern hemisphere, Deinotherium bozasi and Elephas(Palaeoloxodon) recki from the late Pliocene eastern Africa, are both trying to keep a better spot for tree browsing to them selves.
As far as I know, fossils of both Deinotherium bozasi and one of E.recki's subspecies, E.r. ileretensis were among an assemblage of the late Pliocene animals collected in fossil sites of the lake Turkana, known as Kaitio members.

Besides that, fossil distributions of Deinotherium and several subspecies of E.recki are surprisingly overlapped in some other famous localities, especially of eastern Africa and their fossil numbers happen to be the most numerous in the period of the late Pliocene(while both survived well into the Pleistocene time). Elephas recki had relatively high crowned teeth but not as strictly adapted to grass glazing as in later Mammuthus and they may have shared from time to time, the similar partly forested habitats with browsing Deinotheres.
Combining all these, I think it's probable that they had occasional interaction within the late Pliocene time in some of these localities, probably in the vicinity of the lake Turkana area.
This just occured to me and ofcourse, may not be proven as such.

:Morphology:
The African Deinotherium seems to be similar in size and shapes to giant cousins of Eurasia(i.e, D.giganteum), judging from teeth and fragmentary bones, but to what extent did they resemble in terms of post cranial morphologies cannot be judged at the moment.

As to Elephas recki, there's been several skeletons unearthed and one of them is probably the only instance in entire proboscidea fossil finds so far, where the complete skeleton from just a single individual reaches the spectacular shoulder height of 4.5m, if I remember right.
The cranial morphology of this species is really intriguing and tough to draw, since it seems to be rather similar to Loxodonta in its broadness and roundness, yet its eye sockets are placed more frontally and the head is much more pronouncedly domed even than in Elephas maximus!

ⓒJagroar