The second group of Mastodons are called the bunodont mastodons. They were much more numerous and more diverse than the zygodont Mastodons. They tended to have both the upper and lower tusks seen in Paleomastodon; in fact, many of them greatly enlarged the lower tusks into large, shovel-like teeth. Gomphotherium is a type of bunodont Mastodon that can often be seen in museums. Gomphotherium fossils have been found in Europe, Asia, Japan, North America, Central American, and South America-which they reached in the early Pleistocene.
It is the bunodont gomphotheres that our modern elephants are descended from. During the Pleistocene Epoch, the bunodont Mastodons began to change the teeth in their lower jaws, and to reduce and finally lose the large lower tusks. In Africa, paleontologists have found the fossils of an animal named Primelephas gomphotheroides in Kenya. It was found in five million year old deposits, and is the most primitive known elephant, it still has many traits seen in the gomphotheres.
(See my article "Biological Nomenclature" for more information about how biologists divide animals into groups.)
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