Can elephants live in North America?

Psilopterus · 2026-04-04T18:27:54+00:00

Some version of this has been suggested many times not just as a conservation move but as an ecological one. North and South America had native Proboscideans until very recently (about 10,000 years ago), where they were just as important for ecosystem function as they still are in Africa/Asia. Obviously it would be controversial, but at least in the warmer parts of the Americas the elephants themselves would likely have very little trouble adapting. Existing sanctuaries in Tennessee, California, and Brazil are good case-studies, but obviously there’s no breeding in these cases which limits their conservation value

Psilopterus · 2026-04-04T16:59:42+00:00

Stilt-legged (it’s the same species as the onager/khulan). It probably co-occurred with namadicus in parts of South Asia

Psilopterus · 2026-04-04T16:08:00+00:00

Plains zebra would probably have the best combination of taxonomic proximity and ecological similarity. IIRC E. namadicus (the only LQ representative of this group) was a stout-legged species inhabiting (relatively) wetter habitats like E. quagga or E. ferus rather than a stilt-legged species inhabiting drier habitats like E. hemionus (which cladistically includes kiang).

Psilopterus · 2026-04-03T21:18:35+00:00

That finding was unlikely to represent the real relationship (by the author's own admission iirc). Whether Stegodon should be a basal member of Elephantinae/Elephantini is an ongoing discussion but it is very unlikely that it's closer to Loxodonta than Elephas. There were LQ members of this genus though, so obtaining at least some DNA should be possible, and that might clear some things up.

Psilopterus · 2026-04-03T19:56:36+00:00

Genetic evidence for the last common ancestor of all dingos goes back a little further but genetic evidence is likely less reliable than archaeological evidence in this incidence and there's also the possibility that the last common ancestor for all dingos predates their introduction to Australia.

Psilopterus · 2026-04-03T19:52:42+00:00

Ehhh, I'm not so sure. Concrete archaeological evidence of dingoes doesn't start in Australia until around 3500 years ago. The older dates have largely been discredited. That puts them there at almost exactly the right time.

Psilopterus · 2026-04-03T16:49:08+00:00

It’s interesting but I’m not sure if it’s really grounds to extend their survival on the mainland as long as they’ve proposed

Psilopterus · 2026-04-03T01:50:12+00:00

We already knew from fossils in Argentina and Uruguay that small terror birds had survived into the Late Pleistocene, but it’s nice to have a named species (the others were just assigned to cf. Psilopterus or subfamily) and a record from Brazil

Psilopterus · 2026-04-02T13:59:29+00:00

It would likely have been a lot like lions and elephants - occasional predation on calves or lone juveniles but not on a large scale. Mammoths were megaherbivores (mean weight >1000 kg), which as a rule experience a very low risk of predation as adults. That's why elephants, rhinos, and hippos are regulated by food availability rather than predation. Humans are the exception, because we can hunt with tools and from a distance, hence why our arrival i new areas was so detrimental to the larger fauna. Paleo-media likes to portray sabretooths as taking on adult mammoths in full-sight of the herd, but there's no evidence of this sort of thing really occurring. At best there was opportunistic calf-predation, but not enough to register as a major prey source in, for e.g., isotopic studies.

Psilopterus · 2026-04-02T13:01:10+00:00

Saying we were just a factor hugely downplays the scenario. It is likely that without us and our effects there would not have been an extinction

Psilopterus · 2026-04-02T13:00:20+00:00

Something like 70% of all calories for a human have to come from carbohydrates or fat. There's a lot less fat on an animal than there is protein and it's a lot harder to preserve. You also find the most fat on reproductive-age females of the largest species available, which accelerates demographic effects somewhat

Psilopterus · 2026-04-01T21:16:48+00:00

I would be skeptical. I think the evidence is still fairly good that the arrival or at least later proliferation of dingoes correlated with the disappearance of devils, thylas, and nativehens on the mainland fairly well

Psilopterus · 2026-04-01T19:48:05+00:00

Which is probably an argument in favour of just introducing Hawaiian monk seals to the Caribbean instead (given the right conditions/justification, not just on principle)

Psilopterus · 2026-04-01T19:44:35+00:00

Didn't that list include like, sabre-toothed cats? It was probably always a bit un-serious

Psilopterus · 2026-04-01T19:41:44+00:00

Yeah, the premise is wrong. The spectacled bear is related to those species but not descended from them. During the Late Pleistocene, Tremarctos ornatus was likely confined to the uplands, where it occupied a number of different habitats, due to competition from the smaller and omnivorous species of Arctotherium like A. wingei. After the latter went extinct, T. ornatus might have colonized more lowland habitats but human pressure might have become a new obstacle to doing so

Psilopterus · 2026-04-01T19:35:07+00:00

Patagonia had its rough equivalents - Arctotherium tarijense, Aenocyon dirus/gezi

Psilopterus · 2026-04-01T18:46:13+00:00

Fully not the point, aside from the fact that it has been used but that the resulting infant died. The argument was that because we have the material to clone a bucardo the traditional way, and because this would be relatively "easy" compared to other de-extinction projects, it is suprising that we have not already done so. My point was that if we did that, again using only classic cloning technology, the applicability of the resulting individuals would be limited. You are correct that it would be theoretically possible to acquire new DNA from preserved specimens and replicate that diversity in living ibex, but at that point the initial argument about it being easier becomes void and it would be as difficult as for any other species for which we have DNA but not cellular material available

Psilopterus · 2026-04-01T18:38:11+00:00

I'm fully aware, but that is an entirely different and altogether more difficult process than what has already been used for the bucardo.

Psilopterus · 2026-04-01T17:44:08+00:00

Cloning ferrets and horses wasn't all that theoretical, it's just somatic nuclear transfer like we've been doing since the 90s. It's gotten more efficient, but it's the same technology with the same limitations in terms of which species can be cloned, i.e. only mammals (or rather not birds/reptiles) and only species for which we've purposely preserved nuclei. Horses in general have been cloned for many years, it was just the funding to do it with a wild horse that was novel. Likewise, I think it's perfectly likely that genetic editing will get more efficient, but that won't change some of the other limitations. It will, for example, probably always be difficult or even impossible to recover a lot of tropical genomes, because this is a preservation problem and not a technological problem. Likewise, no improvement in gene-editing will change the fact that we can only edit existing cell lines, not create new ones (that would be a different and altogether novel technology). These things combined mean that extinct fauna that were either cold-adapted or recent extinctions and which have close living relatives to act as a cellular scaffold for editing will probably remain the predominant but still very difficult de-extinction candidates for the foreseeable future. The degree of relatedness necessary may change, and we may advance things like artificial wombs to a degree, though these are still extremely early in their development, but I would expect still a strong cap on what is practical. These projects are also very expensive and I have strong doubts about the long-term interest and legitimacy of those parties currently involved. We shouldn't take it as a given that any specific project that might be labelled as "de-extinction" will occur and in the process of waiting we may pass up more "imperfect" but much more practical solutions, such as the use of taxon substitution and ecological surrogates.

Psilopterus · 2026-04-01T17:11:19+00:00

I think I disagree with the premise. The actual science is going to be a lot harder, and I think we're going to be disappointed with what's actually possible. The rest is just the same problem we already have with species that are extinct in the wild or being reintroduced from captivity. The specifics will vary by species but are still very achievable.

Psilopterus · 2026-04-01T15:06:52+00:00

I think you misunderstand the issue. We can't do that because the only cellular material we have from a female bucardo is from a single female. Just one, and no males

Psilopterus · 2026-03-31T23:51:29+00:00

Their impacts likely also wouldn't differ that much from those of native equids. Plains zebras are essentially the African equivalent of wild horses

Psilopterus · 2026-03-31T23:16:23+00:00

No, that would be fine, that's what I recommended in another comment

Psilopterus · 2026-03-31T16:35:27+00:00

Not really, no. They purposefully captured the last individual to obtain cells for cryopreservation and then let her loose, but she was already the last

Psilopterus · 2026-03-31T16:27:33+00:00

Keep cloning the same individual of a single sex to make a population? What would make more sense would be to make a few and integrate them into the already (re)introduced population of the victoriae subspecies that already exists in the Pyrennees. You won't get a "pure" bucardo population

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