ELEPHANTIDAE PHYLOGENY : MORPHOLOGICAL VERSUS MOLECULAR RESULTS

Traditionally, morphologically based phylogenetic relationships within the famili Elephantidae (mostly Loxodonta, Elephas, and Mammuthus) depicted Elephas and Mammuthus as closely related taxa with Loxodonta, as a sister-group to this clade. Until recently, molecular studies were unable to resolve relationships among the woolly mammoth (Mammuthus), Asian (Elephas) and African (Loxodonta) elephants, or indicated a phenetic pairing of Loxodonta and Mammuthus with Elephas as a sister-group to this grade. In this study we provide further morphological evidence for the traditional hypothesis and data from aligned DNA sequences of the mitochondrial gene cytochrome b in support of the monophyletic Mammuthus-Elephas clade.

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