adjective
- relating to or characteristic of elephants and their extinct relatives
Usage: zoological
noun
- a mammal of the order Proboscidea, including elephants and their extinct relatives such as mammoths and mastodons
Usage: zoological
Examples
- The museum’s proboscidean exhibit featured fossils of ancient elephants.
- Scientists study proboscidean evolution to understand how elephants developed their trunks.
- Mammoths were proboscideans that lived during the Ice Age.
- The proboscidean skull showed adaptations for supporting a heavy trunk.
- Modern elephants are the only surviving proboscideans.
- Proboscidean fossils have been found on every continent except Antarctica and Australia.