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Straight-tusked elephants (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) were the largest land mammals of the European Pleistocene. Image credit: Hodari Nundu, CC-BY-4.0.

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Neanderthals May Have Hunted Giant Elephants that Roamed across Prehistoric Europe

March 17, 2026

Chemical clues preserved in the teeth of straight-tusked elephants (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) from the 125,000-year-old site of Neumark-Nord in…

Schulz et al. examined the whiskers that cover Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) trunks and found that they are geometrically and mechanically tailored to facilitate tactile perception by encoding contact location in the amplitude and frequency of the vibrotactile signal felt at the whisker base. Image credit: Schulz et al., doi: 10.1126/science.adx8981.

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Remarkable Sense of Touch in Elephant’s Trunk Isn’t Just about Muscles or Nerves: Study

February 18, 2026

Keratin composites enable animals to hike with hooves, fly with feathers, and sense with skin. Mammalian whiskers are…

An adult mastodon (Mammut sp.) consuming a spruce branch set against a backdrop illustrating their cyclical continental migrations linked to climate fluctuations. At least two species of mastodons roamed North America during the Middle and Late Pleistocene: the American mastodon, stretching from the eastern seaboard to central parts of the continent, and the Pacific mastodon from central Alberta through California. Image credit: Kathryn Killackey.

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Mastodons were Far More Genetically Diverse than Previously Known, Ancient DNA Shows

September 18, 2025

Ancient DNA has been useful in reconciling deep evolutionary relationships and responses to ecological changes in elephants and…