Page 5 - Palombo_Ferretti _2005

ARTICLE IN PRESS
M.R. Palombo, M.P. Ferretti / Quaternary International 126–128 (2005) 107–136 111

Fig. 3. Molars of M. meridionalis from various Italian localities. (A–B) Upper Valdarno. (A) IGF 61, left M3; (B) IGF 87, right M3; (C–D)
Pietrafitta (Farneta FU, late Early Pleistocene). (C) CET 79, right m3; (D) CET 384, right M2; (E–G) Crostolo (Farneta FU, late Early Pleistocene).
(E) MSNRE-CRO3, right M3; (F) same specimen, lingual view; (G) MSNRE, left m3. All teeth, except F, are in occlusal view. Scale bar is 5 cm.

Savignano mammoth to a species more primitive than definitely less than in M. trogontherii and M. primigen-
M. meridionalis. ius. Last upper and lower molars (M3–m3; Figs. 3a
and b) possess from 11 to 14 plates (without talons), an
2.1.2. Mammuthus meridionalis (Nesti 1825) average enamel thickness of 3.2 mm, and a mean
M. meridionalis is one of the best known Plio- hypsodonty index (height/width) of 1.3 (Ferretti, 1998;
Pleistocene elephants. The species is based on the rich Lister, 1996a).
material from the Late Pliocene/Early Pleistocene (ca. The Florentine naturalist Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti
2.0–1.75 Ma) Upper Valdarno (Valdarno Superiore) (1775) was the first to describe remains of fossil elephant
fluvio-lacustrine deposits. The skull of M. meridionalis from various localities in Tuscany. Targioni Tozzetti
is on the average higher than in earlier mammoth taxa, referred all the specimens he studied to the Asian
with a concave forehead and wide parietals (Fig. 2a). elephant, E. maximus, thus not realizing the Italian
Tusks are large, more massive and curved in males, material pertained to a newly discovered extinct species.
showing a double curvature (spiraling) generally more Later, Nesti (1808), working on the abundant elephant
accentuated than in Elephas and Loxodonta, but remains from the Upper Valdarno, remarked the