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) if Brent Hinds is again responsible for most of the initial songwriting, Dailor replied, "I think it's a little more collaborative, with everyone chipping in." In April 2011 Mastodon announced two of the titles from their forthcoming album: "Blasteroid", and "All the Heavy Lifting". On June 16 the band's website posted the names of three more songs; "Octopus Has No Friends", "Stargasm", and "Curl of the Burl". On July 25, a song from the album, titled "Black Tongue" was released - via iTunes, Spotify and Ovi Music. On August 12, another song from the album, titled "Curl of the Burl"