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Why haven't I seen this before? Ancient elephants may have been largest land mammals ever
As with many analyses in paleontology, this one has been disputed, and there have been many arguments back and forth. I will simply post a link to the original paper, and some short excerpts:
ASIER LARRAMENDI
Larramendi, A. 2016. Shoulder height, body mass, and shape of proboscideans. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 61 (3):537–574.
In recent decades there has been a growing interest in proboscideans’ body size, given that mass is highly correlated with biological functions. Different allometric equations have been proposed in the recent decades to estimate their body masses, based on a large number of living examples. However, the results obtained by these formulae are not accurate because extinct animals often had different body proportions and some were outside the size range of extant samples. Here the body mass of a large number of extinct proboscideans has been calculated by the Graphic Double Integration volumetric method which is based on technical restorations from graphical reconstructions of fossils employing photos, measurements and comparative anatomy of extant forms. The method has been tested on extant elephants with highly accurate results. The reconstructions necessary to apply this method give important information such as body proportions. On the other hand, equations to calculate the skeletal shoulder height have been developed, with a large number of published shoulder heights being recalculated. From the shoulder heights, several equations were created to find out the body mass of a series of extant and extinct species. A few of the largest proboscideans, namely Mammut borsoni and Palaeoloxodon namadicus, were found out to have reached and surpassed the body size of the largest indricotheres. Bearing this in mind, the largest land mammal that ever existed seems to be within the order of Proboscidea, contrary to previous understanding.
K e y w o r d s : Mammalia, Proboscidea, Mammuthus, Palaeoloxodon, Deinotherium, body mass, shoulder height.
Asier Larramendi [larramendi.asier@eofauna.com], EoFauna Scientific Research, Errondo pasalekua 6, 10c. 20010, Donostia, Navarre, Spain.
Received 7 November 2014, accepted 8 June 2015, available online 10 July 2015.
Copyright © 2016 A. Larramendi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (for details please see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
***
https://www.app.pan.pl/archive/published/app61/app001362014.pdf
Larramendi, A. 2016. Shoulder height, body mass, and shape of proboscideans. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 61 (3):537–574.
In recent decades there has been a growing interest in proboscideans’ body size, given that mass is highly correlated with biological functions. Different allometric equations have been proposed in the recent decades to estimate their body masses, based on a large number of living examples. However, the results obtained by these formulae are not accurate because extinct animals often had different body proportions and some were outside the size range of extant samples. Here the body mass of a large number of extinct proboscideans has been calculated by the Graphic Double Integration volumetric method which is based on technical restorations from graphical reconstructions of fossils employing photos, measurements and comparative anatomy of extant forms. The method has been tested on extant elephants with highly accurate results. The reconstructions necessary to apply this method give important information such as body proportions. On the other hand, equations to calculate the skeletal shoulder height have been developed, with a large number of published shoulder heights being recalculated. From the shoulder heights, several equations were created to find out the body mass of a series of extant and extinct species. A few of the largest proboscideans, namely Mammut borsoni and Palaeoloxodon namadicus, were found out to have reached and surpassed the body size of the largest indricotheres. Bearing this in mind, the largest land mammal that ever existed seems to be within the order of Proboscidea, contrary to previous understanding.
K e y w o r d s : Mammalia, Proboscidea, Mammuthus, Palaeoloxodon, Deinotherium, body mass, shoulder height.
Asier Larramendi [larramendi.asier@eofauna.com], EoFauna Scientific Research, Errondo pasalekua 6, 10c. 20010, Donostia, Navarre, Spain.
Received 7 November 2014, accepted 8 June 2015, available online 10 July 2015.
Copyright © 2016 A. Larramendi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (for details please see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
***
https://www.app.pan.pl/archive/published/app61/app001362014.pdf
Conclusions begins on p.561, Index 1 w/illustrations on p.570.
Some of the species proposed to be the largest land mammals ever are based on extremely fragmentary fossil remains, a common problem in paleontology.