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
The Hunter (Mastodon album) The Hunter (Mastodon album) The Hunter is the fifth studio album by American heavy metal band Mastodon. Released through Roadrunner Records on September 26, 2011 in the UK and one day later in the US via Reprise Records "The Hunter" is their first release with producer Mike Elizondo. In its first week of release in the UK, the album reached number 19 on the UK Albums Chart and position number 10 on the "Billboard" 200 chart selling over 39,000 copies in the first week. As of December 2011, The Hunter has sold over 75,133 copies in the United States. The