Talk:Stegodon

Dwarf elephant
Should this page be merged with Dwarf elephant?

--Jarich 23:35, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

No, because the Dwarf elephant page isn't only referring to Stegodons. For example, the dwarf elephants that it refers to on Wrangel Island were mammoths, not Stegodons. The Singing Badger 00:58, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC) And don't forget the dwarf elephants of the Mediterranean islands, and the Channel Islands in California. Pmaas 20:55, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Number of valid species
There are more species named than described here! Does anyone know more on this. Are some synonyms or are they all valid. I know that Stegodon (Parastegodon) akashiensis has subsequently been synonymised with Stegodon aurorae (Taruno 1991). Pmaas 20:55, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I know that Stegodon airawana is a synonym of Stegodon trigonocephalus. gdvdb 23:45, 17 January 2006

And 'Stegodon sinensis' has been synonymised with 'Stegodon orientalis.'

The comment above this one is unsigned. More synonyms: S. preorientalis, S. yuanmouensis, S. guangxiensis, S. sinensis and S. orientalis (Hopwood, 1935) are junior synonyms of Stegodon elephantoides (Clift, 1828).

S. yushensis, S. huanghoensis, S. chiai, S. cf. chiai and Stegolophodon yangyensis are junior synonyms of Stegodon zdanskyi (Hopwood, 1935).

S. orientalis grangeri, S. elephantoides (Zhang 1987), S. (Sulcicephalus) szechuani are junior synonyms of Stegodon orientalis (Owen, 1870).

It's ridiculous that it appears that some authors even reused names. Reference: Zong (1995) Mike.BRZ (talk) 01:00, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Additions
I've extended the Stegodon entry a little, by adding some remarks on their ancestry and relationships, and on dwarfing of stegodonts on islands. The notion that all stegodonts had straight tusks that were so close together that the trunk supposedly could not pas in between them, is based on a single individual described by Hooijer (195?) and shown in the exposition hall of the Natural History Museum NATURALIS in Leiden, The Netherlands. However, I've seen many stegodon tusks that are all curved, in fact the only straight tusks I've seen are those in the Leiden museum.

gdvdb 23:45, 17 January 2006


 * Aside from many Stegodon trigonocephalus, some specimens of S. zdanskyi, S. miensis,S. orientalis(huanghoensis), and S. ganesa were also close tusked. S. zdanskyi also seem to have straight tusks. You may refer to these links S. huanghoensis, S. zdanskyi and S. ganesa (Natural History Museum, London)Artemesiagentile (talk) 19:40, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Most recent 'Stegodon' species
The most recent Stegodon species lived in China only 4000 years ago, according to Ma & Tang (1992).

Ma, A. & Tang, H. 1992. On discovery and significance of a Holocene Ailuropoda-Stegodon fauna from Jinhua, Zhejiang. Vertebrata PalAsiatica 30, 295-312.--129.177.48.76 (talk) 22:12, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Height
Is there any evidence that Stegodon did reach this height (4m)? from the looks of it the species in this genus are all pretty obscure and I find it hard to believe that it got that big, you never heard of it being mentioned within the big proboscideans and if it was normal for some of its species to reach 4m tall as to have it on the article without sources, that should make it at least, more internet famous... but is not, also the big list of species is a good example of how absurdly splitted is proboscidea. Mike.BRZ (talk) 03:57, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Mie Prefectural Museum in Mie, Japan, exhibits a reconstructed skeleteon of Stegodon Miensis (Matsumoto, 1941) which is 3.6m tall and 7.6m long (tusks to tail) according to the exhibit's description. However their website has at least one document which states that it's 3.8m tall (Edit: That was probably for the huanghoensis cast, not the miensis). In any case it's huge. Museum brochures describes the species (miensis) in general to be up to 4m tall and 8m long. It's difficult to find non-paywalled or even online original sources though (e.g. the Matsumoto dokument, or Taruno and Kamei, 1993). TArntsen (talk) 05:44, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Museum mounts of proboscideans often have their shoulder heights enlarged by half a meter or more due to putting the vertebral column centra at the level of the tips of the scapula (this happened with the Mammuthus "sungari" mounts in China and Japan), generally measurements claimed by museums are not very reliable but thanks a lot, we now have a lead! which is something haha. Mike.BRZ (talk) 05:50, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's necessary to find Matsumoto (1941), according to this it's only a piece of jawbone and molars, it also mention the 3.8m tall, 7.6m long skeleton in the Mie Prefectural Museum which is a cast of a Chinese "Stegodon huanghoensis", it also mentions that Stegodon miensis was smaller than it. Being a Chinese discovery will make easier finding info on this giant Stegodon, for example, all the issues of the journal Vertebrata PalAsiatica are available online for free on their website.Mike.BRZ (talk) 07:04, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I have seen the huanghoensis cast, it's a different specimen. The miensis is a newer setup. As you mentioned potential problems with museum mounts I put a picture here and here just to have a visual. I am not in a position to evaluate the accuracy of the mount. The museum describes miensis as being "the largest species to have been discovered in Japan to date." The museum also displays a Stegodon aurorae btw, about 2m tall. TArntsen (talk) 08:28, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
 * But a newer setup as in a new cast of the same bones? the page I previously linked is from the museum you mentioned and even they say that there's no postcranial material of Stegodon miensis found in Japan. btw I think you should make your image public or something, your link leads me to a sign in page. Mike.BRZ (talk) 11:19, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Sorry about the link - fixed now. Both huanghoensis and miensis are on display (the former has tusks quite close together, the latter not) although in different rooms. The miensis specimen is described as "the first complete skeleton restoration of S.miensis in Japan." On display until end of September 2014. BTW your link is to a S.miensis page, S.huanghoensis (which they call "replica") is on another page. TArntsen (talk) 12:30, 1 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I know my link is for S. miensis but the text I quoted is in there, it definitely is another mount, I thinkthis is a better photo of it, as you can see in the contrast between dark bones and light and smooth bones most of the limb bones are lacking, the pelvis looks a little too big is all plaster as is the seemingly oversized scapula (longer than the humerus), the hands and feet are also not real bones but we are not to judge the quality of the mount, the important thing for Wikipedia is that a mount like that exists and we can cite the page of that museum as reference for an almost 4m tall Stegodon.Mike.BRZ (talk) 17:54, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Is it me or does the image you linked says it's 3.6m tall? Mike.BRZ (talk) 04:36, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Correct, I also mentioned that in my first comment above. One of the museum's web pages we discussed earlier says that their cast of the コウガゾウ (Kougazou, "Yellow River Elephant", aka S.huanghoensis) is 3.8m and larger, but that one comes from China. I wasn't actually aware of that page when I started talking about the miensis here (but it was also mentioned on their miensis page - I probably mixed that up a bit and I'll insert a small correction in my first comment). So although the miensis is 'largest in Japan' it appears that the huanghoensis of the Chinese mainland could be larger. Still haven't found out where those round numbers "4m, 8m" come from, it may simply be an assumption about what their ultimate size could be. After all there are only a few truly large African elephants around, for example. But I haven't seen it said in any of the PDFs I've been able to find. In any case, there were clearly some rather large Stegadons around at one time.. TArntsen (talk) 06:04, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Stegodon tetrabelodon syrticus?
Regarding this sentence: "Stegodon tetrabelodon syrticus was a spectacular late Miocene species with four tusks described from a partial cranium and jaws found in North Africa."

I have never seen a species of Stegodon that had four tusks, the lower jaw always looks basically like living elephants. There is, however, a Miocene gomphothere called Stegotetrabelodon syrticus which lived in North Africa and had four tusks. 50.30.49.13 (talk) 02:59, 14 October 2012 (UTC)


 * You are right. Tetrabelodon is synonymous with Gomphotherium, and as far as I can tell there is no Stegodon tetrabelodon syrticus.  That factoid was added in September 2007 and is all over the internet now.  I removed it from the article.  Thanks for pointing it out. --Fama Clamosa (talk) 04:30, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Asian islands?
This creature's range was Sundaland, a peninsula, not Asian islands during the Pleistocene. Kortoso (talk) 22:03, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Not entirely. They were also on Flores, which was always an island. Besides, the Greater Sunda Islands were indeed islands during Pleistocene interglacials. Ucucha (talk) 02:41, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Cryptid report?
"In Bardia National Park in Nepal, there is a population of Indian elephants which, possibly due to inbreeding, exhibit many Stegodon-like morphological features. Some dismiss these primitive features as recent mutations rather than atavisms."
 * That source:
 * http://web.ncf.ca/bz050/HomePage.gne.html
 * May just not be totally reliable. (Single sighting, Coleman, Loren's "Crypto-Zoo News")

Kortoso (talk) 22:09, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's cryptozoology and IMO that part of the article should be removed. It has nothing to do with Stegodons. TArntsen (talk) 05:52, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

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Are all the species here incorrect?
This article seems to be following fossilworks which is going off this study from 2005 it looks like, but there's this 2010 source that lists the species as S. aurorae, S. clifti, S. shodoensis, S. kwantoensis, S. akashiensis, S. sugiyamai, S. infrequens, S. elephantoides, S. cliftimiensis, S. bombifrons, S. orientalis, S. insignis, S. yüshensis, and S. shinshuensis and that there are 14 species instead of the 13 listed here  User:Dunkleosteus77 &#124;push to talk 01:47, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
 * You are misreading it. Fourteen species have been named from Japan alone before the publication in question, all of which have been sunk into S. aurorae, S. miensis, and S. orientalis. This publication adds S. protoaurorae. And of course the diaeresis in "S. yüshensis" is illegal per the ICZN. 2001:569:782B:7A00:A47E:5CD:254B:F95 (talk) 08:29, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Nutrition and Extinction
It would be nice if the main article could add some words, a few sentences, about what was assumed to be their nutrition; and why they went extinct. Right now this is not in the main article, or barely at all. 2A02:8388:1641:8380:0:0:0:2 (talk) 21:16, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Competing weight estimates
Stegodon trigonocephalus, according to Larramendi (2015) may reach an estimated weight up to 5 tons instead of the more modest mass estimates of Van der Geer (2016) and Van den Bergh (2007) being around 1,700kg to 2,100kg.

In addition, S. ganesa was estimated by Larramendi to be around 6.5tons while van der Geer again had modest estimate of 3tons (ca. 3,300kg). This may influence the mass estimates of many dwarfed species that were based upon the mass of the S. ganesa. 2001:4451:903:8600:9151:FB82:DFF9:C0F7 (talk) 15:44, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

S. ganesa vs S. ganesha
I have seen it spelled more often as S. ganesa rather than S. ganesha. 2001:4451:903:8600:9151:FB82:DFF9:C0F7 (talk) 15:47, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

"Derived genera"?
The article states "Some species of Stegodon were amongst the largest proboscideans, along with more derived genera." What is a derived genus? It might be nice to have an explanation, for those of us less expert. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nwalton125 (talk • contribs) 18:40, 14 August 2022 (UTC)