vi] DISTRIBUTION OF SELECTED GROUPS 129 



in Europe, India and North America. They change 

 into ' Mastodonts ' proper, characterised by reduction 

 and loss of the lower tusks and more complicated 

 molars. Such mastodonts flourished during the 

 Pliocene and overran not only Eurasia but also 

 America to the Andes. M. americamis survived far 

 into Pleistocene. Meanwhile in some of the Asiatic 

 stock the molars not only had changed the 'lumpy 

 teeth ' into such with transverse, numerous, lamellae 

 but into practically evergrowing teeth by delay of 

 root-formation. Such ' elephants ' proper are the 

 E. indicus now of India and Sumatra, a close ally of 

 the E. meridionalis and of E. primigenim, the ' hairy 

 mammoth' of Pleistocene Europe and Siberia. It- 

 entered America late. Somewhat earlier arrivals 

 in North America meeting there the mastodon, were 

 E. columbi and E. imperator, the largest of all, 

 extending their range into Southern Mexico. But 

 this sojourn in the New World was short lived. 

 Meanwhile somewhere in Asia a side departure was 

 marked by lozenge-shaped, instead of parallel molar 

 lamellae, e.g. E. antiquus of the Lower Pleistocene of 

 Europe and North Africa, which now culminates in the 

 African elephant, separated as Loxodon on account 

 of its tooth pattern. 



Thus it has come about that these powerful beasts 

 after having overrun the world so far as it was 

 accessible to them, have within quite recent times 



G. 9 



