Rare skull of an elephant ancestor unveiled in France

A French farmer was kept quiet for years after stumbling on the skull of a missing ancestor of the elephant near the Pyrenees, said at the AFP the Museum of Natural History of Toulouse

the very first skull of a Pyrenean juggernaut in 2014 while he was working on his lands near the village of L'Isle-aux-Bois. en-Dodon, about 70 kilometers southwest of Toulouse.

Worried that the farm was invaded By hordes of amateur paleontologists, he kept the discovery secret for two years before contacting the museum.

"It is only when we went, in 2017, that we understood the importance of discovery".

The gomphoterium pyrenaicum was "a kind of elephant with four tusks measuring about 80 centimeters, two on the upper jaw and two on the lower jaw," AFP quoted Francis Duranthon, chief of staff, as saying on Wednesday. museum

. The herbivores had traveled the region there are millions of years where four teeth were found in the same area in 1857.

The whole skull will provide a more image clear of the anatomy of the species

"Now we have a complete skull that will allow us to have a clearer picture of the anatomy of this species," says Duranthon. .

"We put a face on a species become almost mythical", adds the museum curator Pierre Dalous

The skull was dug up and brought to a laboratory partially covered with rock. we have to scratch, centimeter by centimeter, to reveal the rest of the skull, "said Dalous, adding that the experts were halfway to the work that should be completed in six to nine months.

(Except for the title, this story was not published by the NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)