Palaeoloxodon naumanni

Palaeoloxodon naumanni is an extinct species belonging to the genus Palaeoloxodon that lived in Southern Japan in the late Pleistocene about 500,000 to 15,000 years ago. It is named after Heinrich Edmund Naumann who discovered the first fossils at Yokosuka, Kanagawa, Japan.

In 1860, the first fossil record was found at Yokosuka and the bottom of Seto Inland Sea, Japan. Heinrich Edmund Naumann researched and reported these fossils in “Ueber japanische Elephanten der Vorzeit.”(1882). Naumann classified the fossil as Elephas namadicus Falconer & Cautley. In 1924, Jiro Makiyama researched fossils which are found in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, Japan and reported the elephant was a new subspecies and denominated the fossil Elephas namadicus naumannni in “Notes on a fossil elephant from Sahamma, Totomi.”(1924). Tadao Kamei identified Elephas namadicus naumannni was a new species Palaeoloxodon naumanni from fossil found at Lake Nojiri. It is also called Elephas naumanni.

A picture which is a replica of Elephas naumanni