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For some 20 million years elephants of many species have populated the earth.
Their heyday did not end until the last ice age, some 10,000 years ago. During
this long evolutionary process, they also developed massive bodies, columnar
legs, and tusks. At one time members of the Proboscidea lived on every continent
except Australia and Antarctica. They spread from their African origins across
the continents, reaching the inhospitable northern latitudes of Eurasia, and
when the Bering land bridge appeared, they moved into America, too. Of the over
300 different elephants and elephant relations that have existed over the
centuries, including mastodons and mammoths, all but two are now extinct: the
Loxodonta africana, or African elephant, and the Elephas maximus, or Asian
(Indian) elephant.
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