Ancient Elephants Unearthed Near Munich: Rare Discovery of Giant Fossils in Erding Area

The upper arm weighs 100 kilograms and the shoulder blade is almost one meter in diameter: the ancient elephants that lived in the Munich area ten million years ago were huge. The remains of three well-preserved animals were found in the Erding area and, according to experts, they are a sensation due to the number of bones and their condition. On Monday, Peter Kapustin, director and founder of the Museum of Prehistory in Taufkirchen an der Vils, presented the discovery.

The animals, which weighed up to 13 tons and reached a shoulder height of more than four meters, belonged to the genus Deinotherium and the species Deinotherium giganteum. Curved tusks down the lower jaw are typical of this species. Most other generations of ancient elephants at that time even had four tusks, one pair at the bottom and one pair at the top.

Children find bones of ancient elephant near Munich: “Spectacular”

Kapustin’s sons, nine and ten years old, found the first bone a year ago while they were looking for fossils with their father on a slope near a hole.

There are now about 120 bones. Among them are the skull and tusks of a young animal that are 70 percent preserved. This is “surprising,” says Gertrud Rößner, senior curator of fossil mammals at the Bavarian State Collection for Paleontology and Geology, who was involved in evaluating the find. “We know that the ancient elephants lived here. But relatively complete skeletons are rare. “

Kapustin—a trained business economist and self-taught paleontologist—had been out in the area again and again. In 2004, a Deinotherium skull was found near Langenpreising. “For 20 years I kept making pilgrimages to the place and thought: Maybe something else is coming – unfortunately it was always fruitless. ” Until his children were found on April 13, 2023.

A months-long search by volunteers then began, which also found the bones of a big cat and an ancient rhinoceros. A rhinoceros tooth is attached to the vertebral process of an elephant. It’s not like the rhinoceros were hunting the elephant, but perhaps the bones of the animals – including the cat – were washed up in the river at that time. “Finds of small mammals like this indicate that they integrate very quickly into the river sediments,” explained paleontologist Alexander Benn. Otherwise, the bones would not have been preserved.

Scientists do not rule out an “elephant cemetery” near Munich

For the deinotheres as the largest land mammals Europe This is the largest site ever discovered, said the geological preparer, Nils Knötschke. He spoke of a stroke of luck for science. The second well-preserved animal was larger and older, but not yet fully grown, so that the development of the animals could be seen. A large thigh bone was found from the third animal. After the discovery, Kapustin’s sons were given the temporary names “Little Consti” and “Big Alex”, the two well-preserved animals.

To prevent cracked and weak bones from collapsing, “liters of superglue” were used, reports Knötschke. “We had to prepare for the rescue in a rather difficult way. We didn’t want to destroy anything.” They were then found in a plaster coat.

It is not clear why the bones of all the ancient elephants were found in one place. They could, like today’s elephants, go to a specific place to die and therefore it was a “prehistoric elephant cemetery,” says senior curator Rößner, “but that is not possible to answer with certainty”.

Ancient elephants lived in Europe until 2.5 million years ago

A relatively large number of prehistoric elephant remains are known from Bavaria, of which about five are partial bones, including those found by Erdinger. What is very special is a gomphotherium found in 1971 near Mühldorf am Inn, almost complete with almost 200 bones, a replica of which can be seen in the Bavarian State Collection.

However, Bavaria was not particularly an “elephant country”. In what is now the Southern Free State, prehistoric elephant remains are relatively well preserved and close to the surface due to favorable geological conditions in the Molasse basin north of the Alps .

Between about 18 and 2.5 million years ago, several ancient elephants lived in what is now Europe. Species richness was much higher than that of modern elephants. “Proboscideans were very diverse and widespread almost worldwide until the Ice Age,” said Rößner.

The reason for the extinction seems to be due to climate changes and related ecological changes. There was no frost until 14 million years ago, when crocodiles and giant turtles also lived in this country. “It gradually got colder and drier.” The last species of proboscideans in this country were the woolly mammoths until about 14,000 years ago.