Bones of elephant ancestors found

The Omani Barytherium is the first one to be found in the Sultanate and represent the oldest ancestors of elephant (Barytherium). It was found in Aidum area in Dhofar by the Ministry of Heritage and Culture and brought to Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) for identification. Geologists Prof Sobhi Nasir and Dr Abdulrahman al Harthy from the SQU and Dr Erick Seifert from the Stoony Brook University, US, visited the area and found a large area of elephant bones known as elephant grabs where they found and collected large quantities of bones to be identified.
The group of researchers from SQU, Stony Brook and the ministry are still working on these bones and they are expecting new discoveries in the area. They said that this finding is extremely important as it gives the first evidence of the oldest ancestors of elephant found in the world. The scientists named the new finding as Barytherium Omansi. Barytherium (meaning heavy beast) is a genus of an extinct family (Barytheriidae) of primitive proboscidean that lived during the late Eocene and early Oligocene in North Africa.
The Barytheriidae were the first large size proboscideans to appear in the fossil records and were characterised by a strong sexual dimorphism. The only known species within this family is Barytherium grave, found at the beginning of the 20th century in the Fayum, Egypt. More complete specimens have been found since then at Dor el Talha, Libya. In some respects, these animals would have looked similar to a modern Asian Elephant, but with a more slender build.
The most visible difference, however, would have been the tusks. Barytherium had eight very short tusks, four each in the upper and lower jaws, which resembled those of a modern hippopotamus more than those of an elephant. The upper pairs were vertical, while the lower pairs projected forwards from the mouth horizontally. Together, these would have made a shearing action for cropping plants.
Paleontologists know a lot more about Barytherium’s tusks, which tend to preserve better in the fossil record than soft tissue, than they do about its trunk. This prehistoric elephant had eight short, stubby tusks, four in its upper jaw and four in its lower jaw, but to date no one has unearthed any evidence for its proboscis (which may or may not have looked like that of a modern elephant).
Bear in mind, though, that Barytherium wasn’t directly ancestral to modern elephants; rather, it represented an evolutionary side branch of mammals combining elephant-like and hippo-like characteristics.