Elephant Skull Fossil Reveals How the Species Adapted to Thrive in African Grasslands

When a cooler, drier climate allowed grasslands to spread and habitually bipedal human ancestors first appeared on the scene millions of years ago, a remarkably well-preserved fossil elephant cranium from Kenya is helping scientists figure out how its species became the dominant elephant in eastern Africa.

Elephants can interrupt closed woods and create open regions by knocking over trees, uprooting plants, and trampling routes through dense forests. In addition, their feces contain nutrients and grass seed.

"Elephants are linked to our biological family's origins and early accomplishments," Sanders remarked. "Their presence on the terrain generated more open circumstances that supported our earliest bipedal hominid ancestors' activities and adaptations.

"From this standpoint, it is tragically terrible that present human actions such as increasing land usage, poaching, and human-caused climate change are now threatening the extinction of the animal lineage that assisted us in our evolution.

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