Platybelodon Temporal range: Miocene, 15–10 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
Platybelodon grangeri skeleton, Inner Mongolia Museum
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Proboscidea
Family:	†Amebelodontidae
Subfamily:	†Platybelodontinae
Genus:	†Platybelodon Borissiak, 1928
Type species
†Platybelodon danovi Borissiak, 1928
Species
P. grangeri Osborn, 1929 P. beliajevae Alexeeva, 1971 P. tongxinensis Chen, 1978 P. tetralophus Wang and Li, 2022

Platybelodon ("flat-spear tusk") is an extinct genus of large herbivorous proboscidean mammals related to modern-day elephants, placed in the "shovel tusker" family Amebelodontidae. Species lived during the middle Miocene Epoch in Africa, Asia and the Caucasus.

Palaeobiology

Platybelodon was previously believed to have fed in the swampy areas of grassy savannas, using its teeth to shovel up aquatic and semi-aquatic vegetation. However, wear patterns on the teeth suggest that it used its lower tusks to strip bark from trees, and may have used the sharp incisors that formed the edge of the "shovel" more like a modern-day scythe, grasping branches with its trunk and rubbing them against the lower teeth to cut it from a tree.^[1] Adult animals in particular might have eaten coarser vegetation more frequently than juveniles.^[2]

Images

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  P. grangeri reconstruction with size comparison.
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  Life reconstruction of P. grangeri.
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  Outdated restoration of P. grangeri as a swamp-dweller.
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  P. grangeri skull.