Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2017
The gomphothere, Stegomastodon, is the most morphologically progressive non-elephant proboscidean in North America. Prior to the appearance of mammoths during the earliest Pleistocene, stegomastodonts held niches later occupied by those elephants. Two proboscidean specimens from near Taylor, Arizona, show that elephant-like Stegomastodon coexisted with Mammuthus in the southwestern United States during the Quaternary. Other associations of Stegomastodon and Mammuthus are known from the early and middle Pleistocene of Texas and the early Pleistocene of Nebraska. The mammoth from the Taylor locality is the oldest known from Arizona.