This has lots to do with Prehistoric animals
So every paleo fan should know about Elephants. Massive mammals that, in prehistoric times, evolved into various forms. Some of them were semi aquatic, some had shaggy coats to survive in the arctic, and some had jaws that worked like a giant shovel. Or did they?
Nope, it turns out the term “Elephant” only applies to the genera Loxodonta (African), Elephas (Asian), Palaeoloxodon, and Mammuthus (sometimes). The Mastodons, and all those guys? Nope, they’re not elephants. But why? For no reason, just because we don’t call them elephants. So basically you can’t accurately call them elephants because they’re not considered elephants.
This makes no sense. If there’s one thing we’ve learned about taxonomy in the past, it’s that common names can change. For example whales used to be their own thing, but now they’re included as Even toed ungulates, despite the fact that they have flippers, FLIPPERS, THEY’RE A CERTAIN TYPE OF ANIMAL PURLY BECAUSE THEY EVOLVED FROM THEM. Same with Birds, birds are technically reptiles BECAUSE THEY EVOLVED FROM THEM. So clearly definitions can change, so why not vice versa? Why can’t the definition of an Elephant be changed to include other Proboscideans? For no reason, it’s just plain stupid
Thank you for reading my rant on Elephant classification. From now on I will use Elephant as the term for all Proboscideans, and if you want to help fight this tyranny, I believe you should too
