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 discography second studio album, "Leviathan", in August 2004. In February 2006, Mastodon released two records — first, a compilation of their first two EP's, titled "Call of the Mastodon", and shortly after, the video album, "The Workhorse Chronicles". In the same year, Mastodon released their major label debut, "Blood Mountain" through Reprise Records, peaking at number 32 on the "Billboard" 200 chart. Mastodon then released "Crack the Skye" in 2009, "The Hunter" in 2011, and "Once More 'Round the Sun" in 2014, which entered the "Billboard" 200 at number 11, number 10, and number 6 respectively. Mastodon discography The discography of