Some are well known, such as the cartoon favorite woolly mammoth and the American mastodon, while not as many people are familiar with the Amebelodon and the Gomphotherium. At least one species of ancient elephant relative lived in an aquatic environment. Their Family . The ancestral line that produced mammoths and elephants separated from the mastodon side of the family 16 or so million years ago. The chimpanzee–human last common ancestor, or CHLCA, is the last common ancestor shared by the extant Homo and Pan (chimpanzee and bonobo) genera of Hominini. While it was known that the giant woolly mammoth is the ancestor of the modern-day elephant, very little was known about how and when the modern day elephant and other mammals evolved following the … The other elephant species is the Asian elephant. PUBLISHED April 14, 2008. Ancestors of modern elephants were some of the largest and strangest megafauna mammals to roam the Earth after the extinction of the dinosaurs. Here's a line-up of prehistoric beasts from the rhino family tree Here's a line-up of prehistoric beasts from the rhino family tree. But the guide is in the right ball park. This is for one of the elephant's most interesting physical features. Thousands of years ago, an elephant-like creature called the woolly mammoth roamed Earth. Although there are dwindling numbers of elephants alive today, the animal has a long line of ancestors in history. Classified by paleontologists as the earliest known proboscid (an order of mammals distinguished by their long, flexible noses), Phosphatherium looked and behaved more like a pygmy hippopotamus than an early elephant. Even though they have been extensively studied, there are still plenty of questions that remain. Except for fossilized bones and remains found trapped in ice, it’s now gone. Well, to be strictly accurate, scientists now believe that the closest relatives of elephants are the sirenians (manatees and dugongs). The African elephant is one of the two remaining species of elephants on Earth. Modern elephants and woolly mammoths share a common ancestor … Primelephas. Genus Primelephas, (meaning the first elephant), belonging to the family of elephants and regarded as both the present elephants ancestor. By Brian Handwerk. Primelephas was living some 5 million years ago in dense forests in Africa. Due to complex hybrid speciation, it is not possible to give a precise estimate on the age of this ancestral population. That creature was Phosphatherium, a small, squat, pig-sized herbivore that popped up in Africa about 60 million years ago. The Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) is an extinct species of mammoth that inhabited North America as far north as the northern United States and as far south as Costa Rica during the Pleistocene epoch.