Talk:Mammuthus armeniacus

Same as steppe mammoth?
It is very difficult to find anything authoritative and recent regarding M. armeniacus, which I think is because it is no longer recognized as a separate species. Instead, I find a few papers/etc that claim that M. trogontherii is the same as M. armeniacus. For example, the Academy of Natural Sciences website has an article that says "This widely distributed species is the direct ancestor of ... the steppe mammoth (Mammuthus trogontherii or M. armeniacus) of western Eurasia." There are several other publications that also make similar claims, they are easy to find but I will be happy to provide more citations if anyone wants me to. I tried to redirect this page to steppe mammoth but that was reverted, so it appears there remains some doubt about this issue. ErikHaugen (talk) 00:14, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
 * At first, I had thought that this paper by Lenardic said that M. armeniacus and M. trogonotherii were two distinct species, but after re-rereading that paper, I think he was trying to demote "Elephas trogonotherii" as a junior synonym of M. armeniacus (as being a highly variable intermediate form between M. meridionalis and M. primigenius.  And after reading this new paper  by Todd 2009, it appears that the consensus is that M. armeniacus is a junior synonym of M. trogonotherii.  Forgive me for the bother, then.--Mr Fink (talk) 03:45, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for finding those! ErikHaugen (talk) 08:33, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Doesn't [Todd] say that M. trogontherii is the junior synonym? Should it be the other way 'round? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 23:22, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Apparently, yes, he does, after all. It seems that more and more people are slowly using M. armenicus as the Steppe Mammoth.--Mr Fink (talk) 01:16, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Jan 2012 I am working together with paleontologist Dick Mol He tells me that the paleontologic world definitely goes with M. trogontherii, not armeniacus, which has been decided in Shoshoni, J., & Tassy, P., (eds.), 1996: The Proboscidea - Evolution and paleontology of elephants and their relatives. Andre —Preceding undated comment added 21:17, 7 January 2012 (UTC).