* Astronomy

Title: A Fossil Proboscidean Trackway at Mleisa, Western Region of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Authors: Mark Beech

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 Two sites in the vicinity of Mleisa and a third in the adjacent area of Niqqa have recently been discovered by a team from the Abu Dhabi Islands Archaeological Survey. We were informed about the Mleisa sites by Mubarak Al Mansouri, Public Relations and Transport Co-ordinator for the Jebel Dhanna terminal of the Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations, ADCO. Mubarak informed us whilst work was underway by an ADIAS team on the Late Islamic sulphur mines at Jebel Dhanna, that he knew of a place in the desert where there were "dinosaur tracks". Subsequent investigation of the site revealed that there were in fact hundreds of footprints made by ancient elephants and other animals. Preliminary examination of the rock with the footprints suggests that it may similar in age to other rocks with the well-known Miocene fossils, known at other sites in the Western Region, such as Jebel Barakah, Jebel Dhanna, Ruwais and Shuweihat. Extensive collections of fossils have been made from a number of these sites, particularly of proboscidean (early elephant) bones. In November 2002 and in February 2003, an ADIAS team found two fossil elephant tusks, one 2.54 metres long and the other 1.9 metres long, at a site near Ruwais.
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Fossilised mastodon bones unearthed in Daytona Beach

It was millennia ago during the past ice age that mastodons, a massive relative of elephants, roamed what is now Daytona Beach.
Now, the fossilised bones of one of those long-gone mammals have been discovered at a Daytona construction site, including one of its most distinctive features: its long, curved tusks.
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Scientists say an excavation site in western Colorado has unearthed fossils for ice age mastodons of all ages.
The Denver Museum of Nature & Science said Friday they've found the skull of an infant mastodon, the skull of a juvenile, and the thigh bone of what may have been a fetus.
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African elephants are two distinct species

African forest-dwelling elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) are a separate species from those living in the African savanna (Loxodonta africana), researchers have shown.
Scientists have long debated whether African elephants belong to the same or different species. They look very different, with the savanna elephant weighing around 7 tonnes - roughly double the weight of the forest elephant. But studies had suggested they were the same species - DNA in mitochondria (the cell's energy factories) from African elephants found evidence of interbreeding between forest and savanna elephants around 500,000 years ago.

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