Palaeogenomes of Eurasian straight-tusked elephants challenge the current view of elephant evolution

The straight-tusked elephants spp. were widespread across Eurasia during the Pleistocene. Phylogenetic reconstructions using morphological traits have grouped them with Asian elephants ( ), and many paleontologists place within . Here, we report the recovery of full mitochondrial genomes from four and partial nuclear genomes from two fossils. These fossils were collected at two sites in Germany, Neumark-Nord and Weimar-Ehringsdorf, and likely date to interglacial periods ~120 and ~244 thousand years ago, respectively. Unexpectedly, nuclear and mitochondrial DNA analyses suggest that was a close relative of extant African forest elephants ( ). Species previously referred to are thus most parsimoniously explained as having diverged from the lineage of , indicating that has not been constrained to Africa. Our results demonstrate that the current picture of elephant evolution is in need of substantial revision.