In 2022, a team organized by the Florida Museum of Natural History discovered a large fossil site near what used to be a prehistoric river in northern Florida, now Gainesville. They found exceptionally large gomphotheres buried at the site, which was named the Montbrook site.
Researchers also refer to it as an "elephant graveyard," but that title is in double quotes because the gomphotheres, dating back as far as about 5.5 million years ago in the Miocene, are actually only close relatives of the modern elephants we know.
There are four members of the Gomphothere family, two of which are obviously different from modern elephants because they have tusks that curve downward and an outwardly convex lower jaw. The other two members can be distinguished from modern elephants by their smaller size and the fact that their tusks contain distinctive bands of enamel.
Millions of years ago, these elephant relatives lived freely on the open savannahs of Africa, Eurasia, and the Americas. However, trouble followed when cooler temperatures began 14 million years ago, gradually replacing savannas with grasslands and reducing their habitat.
About 1.6 million years ago, mammoths and elephants joined the fray, competing over already diminished resources. Eventually, mammoths lost their resource and became extinct. A 2020 study published in the Journal of Paleontology suggests that the arrival of the gomphotheres led to competition for limited resources, ultimately resulting in the extinction of the gomphotheres.
It is often said that elephant remains are not found in the wild because elephants when reaching the end of their lives, seek hidden elephant graves to die. However, there is no evidence to support this claim.
It is rare to come across elephant remains due to the low population of elephants, and most of the remains of wild animals are found by humans before the natural cycle resolves the system.
So, what is happening at this so-called "elephant graveyard"? According to Jonathan Bloch, curator of vertebrate paleontology, the mollusk remains did not die here at the same time. Upon examination, some of the remains were separated by a hundred years of history. They did not intentionally gather here.
This area is the bay of a prehistoric river, and the mollusks, which are about the same size as Asian elephants, get stuck in the bay when they die. They are then washed into the river from time to time, resulting in a pile-up of mollusk remains, similar to how an excess of loose logs can block a river.
The team has unearthed complete skeletons of one grownup and seven juvenile gomphotheres. The largest individual measured 2.4 meters tall at the shoulder, with a skull and tusks that were more than 2.7 meters long—approximately the same size as a modern African elephant. This site has broken the record for the largest gomphothere ever found by researchers.
These complete bones will help researchers gain a better understanding of the anatomy, biology, and evolution of these elephant relatives, as well as their living environment. Researchers plan to select specimens for display at the Florida Museum of Natural History, placing them alongside mammoths and mastodons to visually demonstrate the vast differences that can result from subtle evolutionary changes.
The site is still being excavated, and this discovery offers us a privileged glimpse into the secret lives of ancient creatures and provides insight into the evolution of existing species.
