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Steven Zhang, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Helsinki

Elephant teeth: how they evolved to cope with climate change-driven dietary shifts

Proboscideans and their tooth structures in various forms across 60 million years of evolution. Illustration by Óscar Sanisidro. Author provided (no reuse)

Seeing elephants in the wild is a timelessly awe-inspiring experience. There are only three living species today: the African savannah elephant, African forest elephant, and Asian elephant.

They are the remnants of a once prosperous lineage of megaherbivores called proboscideans, whose evolutionary epic spanned 60 million years and some 200 species. The African continent was the centre stage of this story.

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