Heffalumps Widely Distributed in Taiwan

The China Post reports that elephants are among us:

Fossil remains of the once indigenous mammuthus -- a species of prehistoric elephant -- have been unearthed for the first time in central Taiwan by an amateur archaeologist at the Taichung Mountainview Community University, local sources reported yesterday.

The fossil -- part of an upper molar tooth -- belonged to a newborn calf that lived in the area around Shih-kang village in Taichung County some 1.6 million years to 2.2 million years ago, they said.

Mammuthus fossils were first found in 1961 in a village in the southern county of Tainan. The mammuthus was dubbed initially the "ancient Taiwan elephant" but officially renamed the "grassland mammuthus" last year.

No mammuthus fossils had previously ever been found outside of Tainan, and the find in Taichung gives new evidence as to the possible distribution of the animal.

Way cool.

[Taiwan]