Mammoth construction of the Great Pyramid of ancient Egypt. The earliest known proboscideans, the clade that contains the elephants, existed about 55 million years ago around the Tethys Sea area. The closest relatives of the Proboscidea are the sirenians and the hyraxes. The family Elephantidae is known to have existed six million years ago in Africa, and includes the living elephants and the mammoths. Among many now extinct clades, the mastodon is only a distant relative of the mammoths, and part of the separate Mammutidae family, which diverged 25 million years before the mammoths evolved. The following cladogram shows the placement
Perry Mastodon Perry Mastodon Perry Mastodon (sometimes called "Perry, the Mastodon") is the name for some mastodon skeletal remains that were discovered along Riford Road in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. The remains were found on the property of Judge Joseph Sam Perry and Mrs. Nelle Perry on October 16, 1963, thus inspiring naming the remains after them. The remains can be seen in a recreated state on the campus of Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois at the science building, where the Geology Department also is housed. The mastodon inspired some Wheaton College alumni to submit "Mastodons" as a suggestion for the school's mascot