Palaeoloxodon recki
| Palaeoloxodon recki Temporal range: | |
|---|---|
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| Size comparison of a 40 year old adult male Palaeoloxodon recki atavus from Koobi Fora | |
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| Life restoration by Mauricio Antón | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Proboscidea |
| Family: | Elephantidae |
| Genus: | †Palaeoloxodon |
| Species: | †P. recki |
| Binomial name | |
| †Palaeoloxodon recki (Dietrich, 1894) | |
| Synonyms | |
Palaeoloxodon recki, often known by the synonym Elephas recki, is an extinct species of elephant native to Africa and West Asia from the Pliocene or Early Pleistocene to the Middle Pleistocene. During most of its existence, the species (in its broad sense) represented the dominant elephant species in East Africa. The species is divided into five roughly chronologically successive subspecies, collectively termed the "Elephas recki complex". While the type and latest subspecies P. recki recki as well as the preceding P. recki ileretensis are widely accepted to be closely related and ancestral to Eurasian Palaeoloxodon, the relationships of the other, chronologically earlier subspecies to P. recki recki, P. recki ileretensis and Palaeoloxodon are uncertain, with it being suggested they are unrelated and should be elevated to separate species.