Tag Archives: Gomphothere

Remarkable creatures

Posted on March 8, 2019 by twilightbeasts

Armadillos are pretty cool animals. They’re pretty weird too. They kind of look like odd small pigs, with crazy sharp claws. What’s more, they are covered in a pretty tough armour topped in even tougher scutes. The scutes alone are … Continue reading →

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A tiny Twilight Beast in a world of giants

Posted on May 14, 2015 by twilightbeasts

A walk in the temperate rainforests of Chile is like a journey into the deep past: a world of ferns, giant conifers and lichens enshrouded in fog and inhabited by tiny mammals that survived the age of giants. The pudú … Continue reading →

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Of dwarfs and dragons

Posted on July 21, 2014 by twilightbeasts

Stegodons were just one branch of the rather diverse probiscidean family tree (the family that includes elephants, mastodons, gomphotheres and mammoths). The stegodons, like the mammoths and elephants, are generally thought to have arisen in Africa, and ended up in Asia, … Continue reading →

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The lolloping shovel mouth

Posted on July 16, 2014 by twilightbeasts

My first introduction to gomphotheres was a research critique of a seminal Quaternary paper by Janzen in ‘Science’ journal. Something about these peculiar and ungainly looking distant cousins of today’s noble elephant fascinated me! Everyone has of course heard of woolly … Continue reading →

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