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
Mastodon (band) on the "Adult Swim Presents" tour along with Converge and High on Fire. On October 17, 2009, they recorded a DVD documenting the tour at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago. Mastodon played the alternative music festival Big Day Out, touring across Australia and New Zealand in January and February 2010. On October 29, 2009, they performed "Divinations" on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon". On November 4, 2009, Mastodon released their second EP, entitled "Oblivion". Teaming up with bands Deftones and Alice in Chains, Mastodon went on tour in September 2010 in the United States and Canada. The tour was called